Knitter’s world
Althea Crome is an Indiana-based artist who makes miniature knits – at 80 stitches per inch, her work is so tiny! We find out how and why it’s her passion…
We chat to Althea Crome about her obsession with miniature knitting
Althea Crome appreciates the importance of scale – as a knitter she respects the art of traditional technique and pattern design and as an artist she rejoices in adaptation, discovery and experimentation. Her unique work is in museums and private collections around the world and featured in many books, TV shows and articles, while on the silver screen, her miniature knit garments adorn the lead character of the 2009 stop-motion film, Coraline.
Althea lives in Bloomington, Indiana – raising her four (now grown-up) children largely on her own in a house in the woods. Althea had a very DIY family, learning from an early age that it is better to learn how to make and fix things on your own, if you can. “I started knitting in earnest when I was a college student. I had an Irish room mate who taught me to knit the Irish way (with the left needle under the armpit) and more importantly, she taught me how to decipher the language of knitting patterns,” she says. Knitting small started when Althea began knitting for her small children. “How I came to knit on a micro level sprang from an innate desire to challenge myself to do the impossible,” she explains. “Like an Olympic high jumper, I look forward to seeing what new heights I can achieve; can I get 100 stitches to the inch? Can
I depict an entire nativity scene on the back of a tiny 1 in sweater?”
One of Althea’s largest influences stems from her love of medieval tapestries, antique beaded purses, and tiny ephemera. “The idea of creating a narrative scene within a small area fascinates me,” she explains. “One thing about miniatures is that they make people examine the image or object more closely than they might with something larger. I love the licence an artist can take with symbolism; art can be fantastic, magical, eerie, and open to interpretation or very literal. I knit at this scale because it is so satisfying and challenging for me and allows me the freedom to design and create objects that don’t take up too much space but can still e ectively tell the story I wish to tell.” The first conceptual piece Althea made was the Earth to Sky sweater. “Like a painter creating a landscape, I used needle and thread to create a ‘sweaterscape’. To see it as a whole, you have to view it from many angles. Your eyes are meant to travel from the bottom (the earth) to the top (the sky),” says Althea. Inspired by Lucas Cranach’s painting The Golden Age, it is now in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Toys and MiniaturesTM in Kansas City.
Althea describes her process of knitting as very tactile and personal. “Knitting in miniature means silk threads are pulled, wrapped, draped and manipulated around extremely thin needles that I make from 0.015in surgical stainless steel wire,” she says. The only way to get the detail is by using a high-powered magnifier close to her face and by knitting very tightly. “Although my pictorial pieces stand alone, in a protective case when they are finished, the process of creating them is very hands-on and intimate.”
“I am hopeless at meditating and have stopped trying, but knitting gets me as close as I can to being in a peaceful and calm place,” she says. “When my children were little, I used it as an escape from the chaos—they would be swirling around me like Tasmanian devils. I was able to focus on my hands, needles and thread and it kept me sane!”
Althea is currently working on a small-scale knit based on the art of a 16th century Italian artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. She has also designed a sweater based on Van Gogh’s Starry Night. “These are both still in the design and pre-knitting stage where I am picking out threads and tweaking my pattern,” she tells us. We can’t wait to see the final results! www.altheacrome.com
Written by Colette Earley
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