Tiny World, in our house, was the box where the very smallest toys ended up. We called a lot of them “Polly Pockets” (after the ubiquitous tiny dolls with even tinier accessories) even though most of them technically weren’t that particular brand of toy. Favorites included the Lion King Polly Pocket, which included a tiny Pride Rock play-stage, and the Jesus Polly Pocket, a wooden nativity set made by Grandpa Art which fit, puzzle-style, inside a little wooden stable. It included a minuscule bit of dowel with a face as baby Jesus, who was often stolen by a cat and had to be rescued from under the sofa.
My daughters and I loved Tiny World. The toys there were some of the most magical to me, perhaps partly because I didn’t know any techniques for making them myself, though I made quite a few larger toys.
But now I’ve got the time. I’ve got the magnifying glass. I still love tiny things. And the COVID pandemic has reordered the previous patterns of life into things so unrecognizable that I need to do something new, something with different expectations, something challenging but mostly disconnected from everything in the past. And the “some thing” I’ve arrived at is micro-crochet.
This may evolve into a new portfolio. It will surely, at times, present pieces I like, that I’m proud of, that may become part of a new expressive body of work. But right now it’s a record of a journey along a new path. It will be backfilled a little as it’s taken me some time to even be ready to write about it. I hope some of my notes will be helpful to anyone else interested in trying this odd craft.
Tiny World, here we come.