There are certain knitwear pieces from our culture that are instantly identifiable— even when knitted at a 1:24 scale. Take The Dude’s trippy geometric cardigan from The Big Lebowski, for example, or Princess Diana’s iconic black sheep sweater. But who would have the gumption to knit these pieces that small? Her name is Julie Steiner, she lives in Philadelphia, and her favorite thing to do is knit incredibly tiny things.
“For whatever reason, I can’t explain it, my hands want to make tiny sweaters,” Steiner recently told Darren Scala in an interview on his YouTube channel, D. Thomas Miniatures. “My hands want to make tiny sweaters, that’s all there is to it.”
Instead of denying her passion, Steiner has embraced this urge, using sewing needles and thread to make doll-sized knitted items. The moment I came upon her work, I simply had to learn more about her path to small-scale stitching and her ethos around handcraft and miniatures at large (no pun intended). Her responses to my questions are below, edited lightly for clarity and length.
So, miniature knitting! How did you first get involved in such a niche art form?
I’ve enjoyed knitting for many years, but it’s only since “shrinking” it that I’ve realized how long I’ve wanted to do it in miniature. A friend reminded me that I made her small sweaters as Christmas ornaments, years ago, and recently I also uncovered some pictures I had saved back in 2007 (and since completely forgotten) of some miniature knitting someone had shared online. So it’s always captivated my attention, but I didn’t get into it seriously until the pandemic when I started building dollhouses and allowed myself to freely experiment with all things miniature.
Was there a certain miniature sweater you knitted that served as a sort of a-ha! moment in terms of your practice?
My “ah-ha moment” happened with thread rather than a particular sweater design, but yes, the first sweater I made with that thread is the one I treasure as “the moment it all clicked.”
With this thread, I felt fluent, like I could make anything I wanted.
I was practicing knitting as small as I could, and it was okay, but not great. I was trying out all the threads that are commonly available, which are mostly mercerized, rather slippery commercial threads. But then I found a different thread, a small-batch artisanal hand-dyed cotton indigo thread from Japan, and suddenly in that thread it was like something came together, it felt like all my effort was unlocked. With this thread, I felt fluent, like I could make anything I wanted.
From that point on, I couldn’t stop, each project led directly into the next one—and I also knew better how to look at all threads differently, because once I had experienced that fluency, I knew what to look for in my materials. I still use a lot of different kinds of thread from Japan; Japanese culture has a different approach to textiles and handcrafting, and the materials reflect that.
I have somewhat of a fascination with miniatures myself, and I know I’m far from alone in that. I’ve covered other miniatures artists such as Tatsuya Tanaka, Kieran Wright, Danielle McGurran, and Jane Housham, but miniature knitting is new to me. What is it about the world of miniatures that you think draws people in?
That’s such a great list! I’ll tell you, we’re not alone in this. I recently taught a class on miniatures in art history, and it’s so much fun to see that artists through all periods of history and all around the world, from so many disparate cultures, have had similar practices of taking objects common in their world and shrinking them to small scale. From ancient Egyptian tomb models to tiny early Roman glass vessels, Japanese netsuke carving, or pre-Colombian Mexican miniatures, it seems like a core creative instinct to make things tiny when we can. It really subverts our experience of the world. I think it’s in part because it alters, for a moment, our own experience of our human-sized bodies; a tiny thing makes us feel gargantuan in comparison, just as enormous things (the Grand Canyon, or big experiential artwork we can immerse ourselves in, like Kusama’s Infinity Rooms) make us feel small. Miniatures change our physical experience of ourselves, and that is irresistible.
Miniatures change our physical experience of ourselves, and that is irresistible.
I get such a laugh out of this factor with my sweaters. I like to hand a sweater to people rather than just talk about them because invariably what people want is to put their fingers inside them, like a puppet. People of all ages, from children on up, everyone wants this. They always want to try to “wear” the sweater on the only body part that will fit. Many ask, “May I?” and I always say “yes” because it thrills me how similar we all are, and makes me marvel at how powerful this response is that these little scraps of knitting provoke in people. People are simply compelled.
I watched your interview on D. Thomas MiniVersity, in which you talk broadly about a love of handcraft. Can you elaborate on what it is about handcraft specifically that you love so much?
Handcrafted objects hold human connections. They’re so warm and rich in comparison to manufactured products. They have soul. As an example, I love handmade pottery, and most of my mugs are handmade, many of them by people I know personally. Whenever I drink coffee or tea, I picture those individuals, I name them when choosing the mug from the shelf, and I put my hands directly where their hands were when they formed the piece on the wheel, and it feels so grounding and connective; they made something useful to me, something incorporated into my daily life for years afterward, and it makes my life feel stitched into a larger community, in both literal and figurative ways.
Creative minds, by definition, are thriving, so living with handmade craft is reveling in the output of other people’s best selves, their strongest, most healthy, flourishing, creative energy.
I love to put on mittens made personally for me, stitch by stitch, or earrings that are one-of-a-kind and there’s some story behind them, or to touch the handmade quilt from someone long gone. Living with handcrafts feels like being surrounded by other people’s care and appreciation. And creativity is healthy! Creative minds, by definition, are thriving, so living with handmade craft is reveling in the output of other people’s best selves, their strongest, most healthy, flourishing, creative energy.
In that same interview, you say, “I’m eager to learn and I’m eager to share it. An artist once told me, ‘Share everything that you know because with more information we all do better and advance things further forward,’ and I really believe in that ethos.” What has the teaching side of miniature knitting brought to you as an artist?
I find teaching incredibly gratifying, for several reasons. One, I get so much enjoyment from knitting, it’s like sharing light, when you see it bring more light and enjoyment to someone else. It also connects me with like-minded people who care about things I care about.
I get so much enjoyment from knitting, it’s like sharing light, when you see it bring more light and enjoyment to someone else.
But also, I admit I often feel creatively “behind,” like I got started too late, or I work too slowly, or my hands can’t possibly keep up with all the ideas in my mind. Hand knitting is a slow process, especially in mini, it doesn’t “scale” and can’t be sped up, every single stitch takes the time that it takes, and my personal creative “to do list” is so long, it can at times feel really overwhelming. That’s my personal artistic anxiety. My worry is that I can’t make things fast enough; I’m never going to achieve all the things I aspire to. But whenever I can teach someone else to knit or crochet, it calms that anxiety, because even though that person is not likely to help me knit my specific ideas or my own personal project list, I find it comforting to know that they’re going to knit something, something wonderful of their own, and even if I can never finish all the projects I want to make, if I convert a few more people to the craft, then illogical as it probably is, I believe we’ll collectively all be able to make “enough,” whatever that means.
Can you share more about your experience as an IGMA artisan? What’s that community like, and how have you been involved?
I have so loved my experience with IGMA. It’s a community of people ultimately brought together by a common love of learning, and I can’t think of a better connection with others than that.
I got involved initially because, through social media, I saw the projects people were making at Guild School, in Castine, Maine, and I realized I was jealous of them. Jealousy is an ugly emotion and I try to listen to it whenever it raises its head; it’s trying to tell us something, so I admitted to myself that, yes, I wanted what they were having.
So I invested in that part of myself that was capable of that jealousy, and I went to Guild School. That was in 2023, and it was like knitting with that indigo cotton thread all over again— once I experienced it, it felt intuitively right and I wanted more. I applied for the designation of “Artisan” with the guild that fall (and was accepted). I took my husband with me back to Castine in 2024, and plan on going again this year. Now I’m hopeful I’ll be able to teach in the future, too.
How do you decide on which existing sweaters you see out in the world that you want to replicate in a miniature version? What makes a sweater compelling to you in that way?
Right now, I’m working on a series, “iconic knits in miniature,” and for that, I’m looking specifically for pieces of knitting that tell broader cultural stories. I’m making miniature patterns of items from pop culture, film, and fashion history—many of them are popularly recognizable like the Princess Diana “Black Sheep Sweater” or the Pendleton sweater that The Dude character wears in the movie The Big Lebowski, or the striped socks the Wicked Witch of the East is wearing when the house falls on her in The Wizard of Oz.
The Big Lebowski sweater
I’m trying to pay homage to the way that a mundane, simple thing like a sweater can contain broader social and cultural meaning.
But I also look for knitting that is historically significant to the history of textile arts, like the tromp l’oeil “Bow Knot Sweater” that Elsa Schiaparelli designed. I’m working on some socks now that are based on the oldest scraps of knitting found by archaeologists in Egypt. I’m trying to pay homage to the way that a mundane, simple thing like a sweater can contain broader social and cultural meaning.
The Wizard of Oz Wicked Witch socks
What are some of your miniature knits that you’re proudest of and why?
Two easy favorites: the Elsa Schiaparelli “Bow Knot Sweater,” because I’ve always loved that design, and though it’s been knocked off many times over the last hundred years, the original is made with an interesting technique, Armenian colorwork. The designer had to bring in Armenian knitters to teach her studio knitters how to do it this way, and it changes the resulting fabric (with bits of black thread appearing in the white areas and bits of white appearing in the black, a heathered effect.) So I had to shrink down not only the design, but also that technique, and I’m proud of doing that.
I’d say that overall, my biggest goal is to make the knitwear in miniature that I myself would most like to wear if I were 5.5 inches tall— comfortable, well-fitted, and fully functional in spite of the small size. This is the same standard I apply to my miniatures, and if I were magically shrunk down, the bow-knot sweater is the first sweater I would reach for.
Princess Diana’s black sheep sweater
My other favorite is the Princess Diana sweater, designed by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne because it’s a fun design. The first draft made me giggle the whole way through because the sheep are funny, it felt wonderful to make it, and I knew that people would recognize it. But I still wasn’t prepared for how deeply it resonated with the public: my miniature version now belongs to the KSB Miniatures Collection in Kentucky, in the Spencer house, the dollhouse recreation of the childhood home of Lady Diana Spencer.
Handcrafted work, fashion, and miniatures all create such powerful connections, and I love working at the intersection of these things.
What I love most is hearing other people’s stories of recognition and connection with the sweater. I had my own association with Princess Diana wearing that sweater back in the 1980s, but I didn’t realize how many other people had strong feelings about it. That sweater being published and publicly accessible has given me access to all those stories in return, and I love how far that resonates. That’s the core of the “iconic knits” project: that a tiny sweater can spark so much feeling and remembrance. It always comes back to connections and that feeling of connectedness with a larger world. Handcrafted work, fashion, and miniatures all create such powerful connections, and I love working at the intersection of these things.
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