Mosaic in South Los Angeles

This piece was created by Jose Robelo

It’s so inspring to see glass enrich the lives of people who wouldn’t necessarily be exposed to it. A really wonderful organization called Piece by Piece is bringing glass mosaic and other techniques of how to create with glass to low-income and homeless people. They are teaching the techniques as well as how to sell and market their work. I recently went to a class in South LA to see what was up. It was incredible. I saw the most amazing work! The fish mosaic pictured above was one of the pieces I just fell in love with. Another piece with a parrot as it’s focal was just awesome. 3D and everything…

This was created by Hugo Sulecio.

Please excuse my hand. I love this piece! So cool. The story of the founding of the organization can be read on their web site at http://www.piecebypiece.org. I was enlightened about Piece by Piece by my good friend Leigh Adams, who teaches with them as well as a number of other facilities and schools. Through her I was able to donate a bunch of my scrap glass to Piece by Piece. Now it’s being used in ways I wouldn’t have necessarily have used it for. And the good thing is that I keep making more scrap for them. I will post updates and other information about this great group every now and then. There’s so much good to say!

For years now Berroco has been releasing a tiny set of Christmas ornament knitting patterns, often modeled on human-sized clothes, called Minutia. The ones for this year haven’t come out yet, but somehow I missed last year’s so I wanted to share them, as well as a fun little twist they offered.

The general 2025 Minutia patterns include a circular yoke sweater, a two-color stocking and a ribbed earflap hat. They’re super cute and perfect for using little (or should I say minute?) amounts of yarn left over from other projects. Make them in Christmas colors or whatever you have on hand. Even if you don’t have exactly the same yarn weight, you can still make these cute additions to your holiday decor.

But what really caught my eye while I was on the Berocco site was the Team Colors Minutia, which are actually different patterns so I’m not even sure when they were released, but they are definitely worth talking about.

These patterns include a little raglan sweater with stripes and a stocking cap with contrasting pom pom.

They call for sport weight yarn, but again you could use sock or DK if that’s what you have in the right colors. And here the right colors are important because you’re stitching your team colors.

Or anyone else’s team colors.

I immediately thought that this would be an amazing holiday gift for someone who you never know what to get but who also happens to like sports. Or has gone to a university that has colors.

Another option would be to leave off the stripes and add a number in duplicate stitch if you or the person you’re knitting for has a favorite player. Or stitch a letter or a tiny version of the team logo on the front. There are lots of options!

If you make these, I’d love to hear what you did with them!

[Photo: Berroco]

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