Tuscany for me? Si!

So, if you'd have asked me a few months ago what I'd be doing in April, I wouldn't have answered "going to Italy".

But I will now.

Evan Kleiman, who you may know from her cool NPR show Good Food, is also owns her own restaurant and catering company. And several times a year, she hosts cooking classes in her favorite country -- Italy -- where she teaches the lucky attendees secrets of Italian cooking. Of course, there's shopping too. In Firenze. [That's Florence, for people like me who haven't cracked open the "Learn Italian" podcast just yet.] Evan books an entire villa, so the attendees stay in one beautiful location, where the classes are also held.

Why am I so excited? Because this April, Evan's going to hold her first cooking/knitting class. And she's asked me to be the instructor! I will be teaching "Learn to Love Lace", and we'll be knitting an original shawl I'm designing in Handmaiden Silken. I'm designing this shawl specifically for the class, so that it's an easy, encouraging knit for lace newbies, with a surprisingly sophisticated result. Remember all that talk about swatching silk lace? What an enjoyable task I've got!

Oh. And there are YARN STORES in Italy, people. And I believe we'll be hitting at least one.

So...this isn't an inexpensive adventure, but it will be an amazing, memorable one. For more information, you can download Evan's brochure here.

You can find a quick overview of Evan's tours here. This fabulous cooking/knitting adventure in Tuscany is set for April 20-29, 2006.

[Eeeeee! I've never been to Italy before!]