#tiny knitting

As an aside, the BBC's 1992 iteration of The Borrowers quietly goes into more detail about this side of their existence. It ran for two seasons, covering most of the books up til "The Borrowers Aloft", I believe. The whole thing can bee found on YouTube, and someone recently posted an HD remaster!

Homily's knitting crops up throughout the first arc as not only a tool for keeping her family warm, but as a way for her to cope with her anxiety. She quickly picks up her knitting (from a small ball of wool she seems to have wound herself rather than from a spool, which is much more mobile) after an argument with Arrietty, and while she waits for Pod to come home from late-night borrowing.

Then, after they flee the cottage, they collect wild wool (seen above) from the brambles to use as insulation, and I believe the implication is that it's later spun into yarn for Homily to use to make Arrietty a sweater/jumper and herself a cardigan, shown in this short clip:

Seriously, if you haven't seen this adaptation, I highly recommend! Lookit Homily getting to be a bit of a badass for once!

The Potential

Knitting like this is plausible in g/t spheres, in my opinion. A lot of modern knitting has grown to lean away from separate straight needles like the pins would facsimile, choosing circular needles instead. Basically it's a few inches of solid needle attached to a flexible cord that more easily allows a knitter to work in a continuous tube (like hats), but they can be used to make flat things (like scarves) as well.

Even if an article is made of tubes- hats, sweaters, and even socks- they can still be made flat and seamed together. So if all a tiny has access to are a pair of pins, or if all a giant can do is carve and polish some wood into straight needles, it's a perfectly valid way to go about things. I'm not going to put a limit on the innovations of big or small folk to be able to come up with workarounds if they truly wanted to make a circular needle equivalent, though. Maybe a tiny could use a sturdy yet flexible bit of wire with the tips worn down to a taper, or a giant could MacGyver something with literal cabling, who knows? I'm all for hearing other ideas!

Real Life G/t Vibes

Most Vibes I get from knitting are from things made with really thick or thin yarn. Big, chunky yarn reminds me of how even the thinnest of yarn would probably still be quite lofty to a tiny. To me, it gives the feeling of having found doll's clothing and using it to keep warm!

The Harper Jacket by Ciadree via Ravelry.com

And I know it's not really useful to a hypothetical giant, but knitting tiny things does give one the feeling of being big. I'm often reminded of Althea Crome, the self-proclaimed micro-knitter who made the knits in the movie Coraline and has a whole gallery of miniature knitted art!

Mixing different weight (sizes) and colors of yarn also gives me very homemade, using what you have on hand even if it doesn't match kinda vibes, which I find fitting for both giants and tinies. They (most likely) don't have textile shops where they can get all matching bits. Or maybe they do, and that's valid, too! I'll get into more detail about that when I talk about scraps and stash eventually, but I think this post has gotten quite long enough.