Here are the trip details.

• Dates: May 13, 2012 through May 24, 2012
• Itinerary:
  • Tour begins in Cleveland OH, with first stop in Milan
  • Next stop — Como to visit the Ratti Museum and Silk Manufacturing
  • Then to Venice.  (Dr. Jennings encourages you to book the lagoon boat ride to Burrano Island to see the lace workers and museum.)  If time allows, a visit to the Fortuny Museum.
  • Off to see the sites in Florence and visit a silkscreening and batik studio.
  • Then to Rome and a visit to a papermaking atelier, among others
  • Back to Cleveland
• Costs include airfare.

• The program is being organized by Dr. Jennings through EF College Study Tours,

• Information pertaining to costs and fees can be found at www.efcollegestudytours.com.  Once on the site, fill in tour # 1045590 in the appropriate box.  (If a pop-up happens, ignore it.)

If you’re interested, don’t delay.  Prices may go up Aug. 31st by another $100 or so, unless they have 5 registrants by that time.  Then they hold fast.

This is certain to be a trip of a lifetime.  It would also be a great opportunity to get together with past PiPN interns to compare notes, network and do a little needlework at the same time.

Personally, I’d love to go.  Maybe I’ll see you in Florence in 2012!

Shannon has been a great mentor, including me in her meetings and in the general planning of her business so that I could really see what it takes to run a small business in the art and craft world. I’ve gotten to do a little bit of everything while I’ve been here. I’ve worked on knitting patterns and knit samples, and I researched and wrote an article for Yarn Forward, the UK knitting magazine that she edits. I’ve gotten to meet other local artists and business people that she works with on a regular basis. It’s been really useful for me to see what kinds of opportunities, both in business and the arts, are available in this area and might apply to me back home. One of the big projects that I took on this summer was working on her new online store; she sells a wide variety of fiber arts supplies as well as knitting, crochet, embroidery, and cross-stitch patterns from a wide variety of designers. Tech-savviness is not one of my strengths, so it has been really useful for me to learn to work with some of the on-line software that she uses.

It’s been a great summer; I’ve gotten to help Shannon start really interesting several long-term projects in different areas. The hardest part about the internship ending is that I won’t get to see all of these cool projects that we started continue to develop first-hand.