I’m moving back into truly TINY world today after visiting “merely small” world with the mini-Amineko in my last post. This half-inch frog is from a pattern by @ami_miniatura, made with @sulkythreads 12wt cotton with a @tulipjapan_official 0.6mm hook. Eyes are 1mm black glass eyes from HoneyQueenBee on @etsy.
This fellow reminds me of a real-world frog called the ”little grass frog” that I saw on a memorable summer evening at the @gwynnvalleycamp my daughters used to go to when they were elementary-school age. The grass was dewy and full of literally millions of them, so many I was afraid I’d crush half a dozen every time I put my foot down. They were so tiny and so perfect, and my animal-loving daughters went crazy for them. I’m still a little surprised we didn’t end up with a few dozen in their bedroom that night, turned out of pockets and backpacks and sweatshirt sleeves.
This piece was relatively quick to make—maybe five hours the first time through, which seems like a long time for something so tiny, but the challenge and the charm of it is that each part of it requires specific techniques that sometimes require practice and repetition before you can do them convincingly. The tiny front leg, for example, even though it is made from less than 25 stitches, requires practice to make it perfectly even—and to make two exactly the same size.
I knitted a lot of toys for my daughters when they were small, and they always required making lots of fiddly little parts and then sewing them together…and I always hated that part of making them. The small pieces were boring and the sewing tedious. But somehow, now, I find this the most interesting thing. Puzzling out how to make the tiny parts and how to put them together invisibly is very absorbing and meditative. Who knew?
