If Mini-Me took up knitting....

January 11, 2013 8:14 AM

If you take your knitting everywhere and you're getting tired of stuffing the back of an adult-sized sweater and a 100g skein of worsted into your already bulging shoulder bag or backpack, you might try scaling down your knitting projects, as Althea Crome has done. Crome is a miniature knitter, and her projects are so tiny they'd fit into your pocket and still leave room for your cellphone. Her work is not only miniature but amazingly complex and detailed. She makes replicas of historical costumes such as a Queen Elizabeth I sweater, recreates famous paintings or other works of art, or depicts entire scenes, such as an underwater seascape, or Santa and all his eight tiny reindeer flying over a house. You can visit Crome's website, Bug Knits, to see galleries of her work. Crome also knitted some items for the 2009 3D stop-motion movie Coraline, including a sweater for the title character, and she talks about her work and demonstrates her "extreme knitting" in this promotional video for Coraline. If you want to give miniature knitting a shot yourself, you can buy some of Crome's patterns to help you get started, and I wish you the best. All I can think of when I see Crome in action is the time I decided to make ten Barbie outfits as part of a Christmas present for one of my nieces. I got four items done before I cracked and COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. Crome's patience and self-control are astounding, and I bet her children have the most exquisitely dressed Barbies ever.
posted by orange swan (13 comments total)

Wow, this is really neat!
posted by asperity at 8:29 AM on January 11

I love that I saw the title of this post - on the front page no less! - and immediately knew who posted it (before actually seeing who did).

Carry on.
posted by IvoShandor at 8:30 AM on January 11

This is incredible! Thanks orange swan!
posted by halonine at 8:59 AM on January 11

I want to love this even more than I do but it's very hard for me to look at anything knitting related outside the comforting amazingness of the best platform on the internet, Ravelry.
posted by telegraph at 9:03 AM on January 11

Fantastic! And the way she makes her own knitting needles for the fine details ... definitely a lady of her craft!
posted by jillithd at 9:10 AM on January 11

So cool! I remember reading about her after I saw Coraline, and being amazed at her work.
posted by sarcasticah at 9:20 AM on January 11

Yeah -- I'd like to link to someone who's done similarly tiny work in crochet (eentsy versions of sweaters I've made for myself) but as far as I can tell it's only on Ravelry and therefore non-public.
posted by asperity at 9:46 AM on January 11

This is great. Make sure you click on the photos on her site for closeups of the fantastic work.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:47 AM on January 11

How wonderful and amazing! Watching her knit with those tiny needles in the video on her site was just fascinating! Thanks for the great post!
posted by blacktshirtandjeans at 10:49 AM on January 11

asperity, I believe you can link some things on Ravelry now, though the original poster may have to have marked them to share publicly. But you could always link so that those of us on Ravelry can see it (hint, hint)...
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:00 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]

I want to see one of those tiny tiny sweaters next to the Giganto-Blanket.
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:14 AM on January 11

I don't want to weird out a random stranger with public links, so I'll throw some up in MetaStitcher. (And of course if you're on Ravelry or want to be, join us there!)
posted by asperity at 12:36 PM on January 11

For some reason, I assumed she would be older and British. Knitting microscopic sweaters just seems like it would be something someone's (awesome) English granny would do.
posted by donajo at 6:01 PM on January 11