Have you seen the movie Coraline?  It is stop-motion film directed by Henry Selick, about an adventurous little girl who stumbles across the “Other World” in which her “other mother” tries to keep her.  It is a fascinating film that has the air of a Tim Burton film, of which I am obsessed.

“Coraline”

One crew member was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters, using knitting needles as thin as human hair.  This artist would be Althea Crome.  She finds “great joy and comfort in the process that knitting provides.” However, the added challenge of creating a physical object that is so small in measure has reignited her excitement about her already beloved art form.

Her fascination with small scale knitting emerged in 2000 and ever since Althea has pushed the envelope creating and perfecting new techniques and designs.  “The ‘bug-knit’ scale has allowed her the freedom to create and experiment with designs that would be a pain on a larger scale.

Althea’s needles are insanely tiny, and she must have the eyes of a hawk to see where her stitches are.  It takes great concentration for me to keep count of scarf stitches, let alone stitches of a sweater that will only fit around my finger.