Althea Crome is an Indiana based fiber artist who designs and creates conceptual knitting at an extremely small scale. Born in Colorado to very artistic and somewhat nomadic parents who lived “off the grid,” Althea learned from an early age how to do for herself. Having a very curious nature and creative imagination, Althea taught herself to make the things she needed or wanted. This DIY lifestyle and appreciation for challenges eventually led her to pioneer a kind of knitting that requires the same kind of innovation and problem solving skills she learned as a child; she calls it “micro-knitting.”
In order to achieve the level of detail required for her pieces, Althea makes her own knitting needles from thin surgical stainless steel. Using fine silk threads, and her .01” needles, she can achieve a gauge of more than 80 stitches per inch which allows her to incorporate complex imagery and personal narratives into her tiny sculptural garments.
Althea Crome’s work has been in many exhibits nationally and abroad including MAD Museum's Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting (2007) and Cheongju International Craft Biennale, Outside the Box (2009) in South Korea. Her work is in several museums and private collections around the world and has been featured in dozens of books, TV shows and articles. Taken to the silver screen, her miniature knit garments adorn the lead character of the 2009 stop-motion film, Coraline. Althea has also participated in community art projects including Jill Bolte Taylor’s Brain Extravaganza (2012) as well as working alongside others to co-curate and organize gallery and miniature shows including Grunwald Gallery’s The Miniature (2015). Crome holds the title of Fellow in the International Guild of Miniature Artisans and has won several awards for her unique art including being one of the winners of the T/m's Barbara Marshall Award for Artistic Achievement (2017).
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