Italy Textile Tour, weaving at Fondazione Lisio

Founded in 1906 to keep alive the art of hand weaving with fine silk and precious metals, Fondazione Lisio offers classes and courses of study, and also does commissions. We were here to learn about and weave on 100+ year jacquard looms.  I'll talk about two things here; one is what I saw at Lisio, the other what I did at Lisio.

Photos from these five days are here.

The jacquard loom revolutionized the manufacture of complicated woven materials in the first decade of the 1800s; it essentially allows individual threads on a loom to be controlled by holes punched in very large paper cards. Jacquard wasn't the first to think of using cards this way... several prior looms had used cards but failed to automated the process; Jacquard's mechanism allowed for very complex patterns to be woven relatively quickly, and by one person. For more information on the loom, what it did to the weaving industry, and how that led to modern day computers, I'd recommend Jacquard's Web.

???? Yeah, that's what I was thinking...

Our experience with jacquard looms started with a tour of the facility, followed by some textile analysis, discussion of the weave structures we'd be working with, some strategies to design thread tie downs to enhance the look of the fabric, and different ways to tile repeating designs; a lot to cover in less than a day!  Eva, our instructor, spoke near perfect English, and was clearly a master of her craft.  Wow.  I'll admit some of this went right over my head... Then we got to meet the looms, and try a few picks of damask and a few picks of velvet to get a feel for the weaving process and the huge looms.

There was a decision point here... did each of us want to weave the pattern that was already on the machine? Or design our own? I decided I wanted to learn more about the looms, and poke around the facility, and not design my own pattern. The rest of the group ended up designing their own patterns, and I eavesdropped and spied on what they were doing so I would understand the whole process.

Machine to lace the cards together

First they drew their patterns on paper, and input into a computer program. When the pattern was what they wanted, they punched the cards for those patterns, checked the cards, and sent them through a giant sewing machine to stitch them together. I don't have a photo of the card punch! But this is the big sewing machine...

The cards were then loaded on to the loom and tied into a loop, and the weaving commenced. Sounds easy, right? We were working in very fine silk; approximately 200 warp threads per inch; so even tiny designs took 50 or more cards for a two color design (one warp color and one weft color) and double that for one warp color and two weft colors. This process took the group about 3 days to accomplish, with many of them just getting weaving on the last day.

I loved this loom...

Meanwhile, my loom and I were getting to know each other...  I was weaving damask on this loom.  I could easily stand under the light bar on the front.  The two ropes advanced each of  two mechanisms on the top. The smaller back mechanism controlled the 8 shafts on the loom, and  the larger front mechanism read the pattern cards and controlled groups of threads. In this particular configuration the two ropes were attached to  one treadle. I'd treadle to advance the mechanisms, throw the background color, treadle to advance again and throw the pattern color; each row of the fabric was two weft threads.  Make sense?  I was happily weaving along...

Then weird shit happened!! The pattern stopped advancing and all I was getting was plain weave. I continued to weave for about an inch, then waited for Eva, who was helping another student...  While waiting, I closely examined my loom... and sure enough, found what was keeping the cards from advancing. On my loom, the cards cascading down would occasionally jump of the rail, and literally get it's knickers in a bunch, if a loom had knickers. After Eva fixed the problem and then had to resync the two card decks, I kept a careful watch on my machine behavior and either climbed up the ladder to fix the cards when they misbehaved, or stopped until Eva had time to look.

A largeish section of my silk fabric, 

which I am delighted to have woven. 

These machines are tetchy. First, they're old, and were not made to the more exact tolerances that modern machinery is; that and they've been in use for a long time, and their wear profile would understandably make them behave differently. Second, they're made for production use; experienced weavers take a few days to get to know the peculiarities of a machine they're never woven on. Don't treadle hard enough?  Maybe you don't advance to the next card. Let the pedal up too fast? Maybe the hooks that control the threads jump off their rails and you don't get the right pattern. There's a lot of moving parts, and a lot that can go wrong.  So many new things to remember, so much that can go wrong.  I was in heaven! Machines like me!!!

There's photos in my Photos album of what the others wove, including some absolutely grand elephants by Gretchen, and some cut velvet woven by Eileen.  Eva, Sarah, and my co-weavers were concerned that I would regret not designing my own piece, and there was a moment where I wished I'd gone through the entire process including design, and punch cards, and so on. It didn't take me long to realize that what I wanted was to get to know a loom, and that coming up with a design and working under pressure to get it up on the loom would have made me stressed and cranky. I'd love to come back for a week or two and go through the whole process... Maybe at a cooler time of year!

This weaving was hard work; they're standing looms, and require that you stand with one foot on the treadle and one foot not while leaning in to push the beater forward and throwing the shuttle. Oddly enough, it's the standing leg, not the treadling leg that got tired. So I spent some time walking around the rest of the studio.

Setting up a loom for velvet (not the red velvet)

There were machines to wind warps, a two step, two machine process. There were machines to wind pirns, and machines to wind warp bobbins for velvet. There were looms with velvet on them, looms with fancy brocades on them, and a computerized jacquard loom where a student was weaving a lovely picture of Mount Fuji; she's the person who designed the pattern I wove. One of the more interesting projects the Foundation was working on was a commission from a museum in Dresden; they were weaving 100ish metres of plain red velvet and plain cloth of gold for a restoration project; I found a video in German detailing the work. The velvet had to be made the same as the original; so it had a twill ground cloth (instead of plain weave) in a pinky color, instead of red like the warp that was cut. I watched the weaver on one of the velvet looms as she tied on new warp bobbins for the velvet... I think it took her 3 days.  The manual labor boggles the mind, even for someone used to making things that take a lot of labor.

I also wandered the halls looking at framed samples of some of the fabrics, some of which I photographed, others I did not. There's some amazing work there. And a amazing workshop, where one of the weavers gets drafted to fix things.

The rhythm of the day was breakfast, shuttle to Lisio, weave, break for pastry and coffee, weave, break for lunch, weave, break for chocolate and a coffee, weave, back to the hotel, drinks and gelato for dinner.   Add in periodic wanders around the building, and that was pretty much it. At the end of the day, my mind was completely blank, wiped, tired. I ate way too much of the pastries Simon got for us every morning, and the wonderful lunches catered by a small local restaurant. Does it get any better than this?

Towards the end of the week, after class, Eileen and I walked out to Bacci Tessuti to look at fabrics... I found a lovely denim blue wool linen blend... and bought 3 meters of it to make a jacket in my tailoring class this fall. When I showed it to DH, I commented that it would make a lovely summer weight sport coat for him, if he could find a tailor... So now we're looking for a tailor and I need more fabric. This is not a problem that worries me.

On our last night in Florence, after we'd said good-bye to Eva and to Fondazione Lisio, we had dinner at Il Santo Bevitore. I had a delightful fish dish with a fried squash blossom, but the real highlight of the dinner was some amazing hand cut pasta with a light amazing sauce over a wood pigeon ragout. There was just the right amount of sauce to highlight the pasta, cooked to perfection, and the ragu was so tasty...  It was lovely with this Chianti!
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Italy Textile Tour, Florence

We actually had prosecco at our kickoff,
but I drank a lot of these later in the week.

Florence is hot, muggy, and overrun with tourists in June; lots of Americans acting like they're in the Disneyland of Renaissance art and architecture. Yo, Countrymen! Please behave yourself when you go abroad!  The nice man I bought a hat from suggested November, January and February as the best times to visit.  I'll heed his advice when DH and I make our return plans.  

Full Photos album for these four days is here.

Day 1

On the first day of the tour, we met in the late afternoon on the veranda of our hotel, the Palazzo Guadagni on the Piazza Santo Spirito. It's a little confusing to get into the first time, but the hotel is on the top floors of the old Palazzo with stunning views over Florence from the veranda. The rooms we were in were blissfully facing the Pitti Palace, instead of the very hip and noisy Piazza Santo Spirito, so I never heard the late night revelry.  There I met Linn and Eleanor, guild mates of Eileen and Gretchen, and finally met Sarah and Simon, who briefed us on tour logistics. After drinks and snacks, we walked to Il Latini, a charming restaurant on the other side of the river. It's tucked away on a side street but not hard to find, and seems to be very popular. We ordered a little bit of everything, and passed it around. What I remember best was the Tuscan steak, and the tenderest rabbit I've ever tasted, seasoned with rosemary, and way too much food. And a perfectly lovely Chianti. I rolled myself back to the hotel and swore never to eat again.

Day 2

The colors!

On the second day, we walked through the Oltrarno (the "other" side of the Arno), and by this sidewalk farmers market... Look at the colors!

We met Valentina for  coffee and pastry at this fabulous coffee bar, Santa Rosa Bistrot, for a quick language lesson and briefing on things like coffee customs. How much language can you learn in an hour? Not much... but it was interesting to listen to Valentina talk about typical Italian life.  Two rules: don't have a cappucino after 11AM and don't skip meals. So I ordered a caffe macchiato  and had a piece of cake.

All silk!

The next stop was the Antico Setificio Fiorentino workshop and showroom; they've been weaving dreams since 1786.  It's true! Just look at their website! On the high end, these are the folks to go to when you're not sure what type of silk fabric you want for the upholstery in your yacht, but you want it to remind you of the ocean; they'll help you design it, then weave it for you by hand or machine. Besides bespoke textiles, they have their own line, too, of fabrics and coordinating passementerie, working mostly in silk and selling to interior designers. Most of their machines are mechanized older vintage Swiss jacquard looms but they still have some hand looms for special fabrics. We also saw fringed trim being made by hand; an automated jacquard loom weaving several decorative bands simultaneously, all the same pattern but with several little shuttles (there's a video in my Photos album).  They also use an amazing warping mill made from a design by Leonardo di Vinci.

Fringe on a specialized hand loom

Chiara, one of their interior and textile designers was our host; and the director, who lovingly maintains all the looms, was in house warping a loom but able to answer our questions.

After lunch, we visited the Art Restoration Institute where Martina explained how art is restored, assisted by one of the bi-lingual students, Julia. The students here embark on a three year course to learn how to restore paintings, frames, mosaics, frescos, graffiti,  statuary, and so on. The owners of the painting only pay for materials, and the students work under the direction of their highly skilled teachers; their primary client is the Italian government. We saw several paintings in various stages of restoration, and got to see some of the techniques they use to restore in a way that can be reversed, and that is easily detectable but not distracting. Many of the techniques were developed after the flood in 1966; restoration is still being done much of the art and manuscripts. Wikipedia states that at the height of the flood, the nearby Santa Croce area was under 22 feet of water!  The Institute is in an amazing building; we were lucky enough to see the phenomenal frescos in the directors office, restored by students. This place was incredible; if you're ever in Florence and can swing a tour, do so. The plein air art tour folks at our hotel were jealous!

My tote bag matches my knitting! I didn't plan this...

After a nap and a gelato, we went to La Serra MK Textile Atelier to meet Margherita Pandolfini and Karl Jorns  at Margherita's family home, Palazzo Pandolfino.  The building dates to approximately 1514, and Margherita briefly told us the history of the family and the lovely gardens, as if everyone knows where their family was in 1514. The greenhouse on the top floor of one of the buildings was added much later, and Margherita has converted it to a surface design workshop. Vibrating with excitement, she and Karl showed us some of their work, which is spontaneous, fresh, lively, organic; their work echoes their infectious enthusiasm. Sadly she didn't have any of her current work for sale, or it would have come home with me; she'd taken it to London for one of the larger flower shows. So we sat down to stamp, stencil, and paint like water color on little tote bags. Karl and I soon started discussing eco prints, mordants, screen printing, stenciling, hand painting, and all things surface design. A glass of wine, some snacks... I left pumped about coming home and painting fabric.

Did I get any photos at the Art Restoration Institute or at Palazzo Pandolfini? No!  I have no excuse, and both were photo worthy.   Do check out La Serra MK's website, it's got exquisite photos of the garden and workshop, as well as of Margherita and Karl.

Day 3

Paolo shows us his grandfather's sketchbook,
which he didn't find until after his grandfather died.
What a special heirloom!

The next day, we visited Paolo Carandini who works with parchment, primarily making boxes. He explained to us how parchment is made, and showed us some of the tools he uses to work with it. lecture on how parchment  He then showed his boxes that tell a story; he heavily researches a topic that takes his fancy then fills the box with images and items that fit with the topic. He showed us one box inspired by women during Klondike gold rush; it included images of the womens suffrage movement and images of the Klondike. He does an amazing amount of research for these boxes... There's a good article about them here.  Some of his boxes are adorned with images that his grandfather, a woodcarver, had drawn... His work was stunning. I could not resist a little box with an owl on it, which I brought back for DH, who was as delighted with it as I was.

Mercato Sant'Ambrogio

Next, we met Valentina at the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio, which was a open building full of shops selling meats, charcuterie and cheeses; outside there were vendors selling all manner of local fruits and vegetables, bread, and so on.

After we'd wandered through the market, oogling the wonderful food, we reconvened at
Teatro del Sale for lunch. This is a club (yep! I'm now a member) created as a "place for socialization, thoughtful relax and entertainment." In the evenings there's usually a musical act, and at lunch during the week, members can have a wonderful buffet lunch; this was a great opportunity to taste a lot of different dishes.  The food was incredible. I ate too much.

Day 4

Maria working her marbling magic

On the fourth day,  we went to  Giulio Giannini e Figlio, a bookbinder and paper decorator. When I talk about paper decorating, I mean marbling.  Maria, part of the 6th generation, took over the family business; she talked a little bit about the issues she faced being taken seriously as a business woman by her father and uncles, as well as the issues she has faced making her work relevant in a world where hand bookbinding or hand marbling  is rarely called for. Maria demonstrated paper marbling to us in a backroom lined with old leather stamps; she's got an amazing eye for color and pattern; then we gave it a go.

 I asked Maria about her marbling media; she uses carrageenan, which she buys in it's unprocessed seaweed form, then cooks it and strains it.  Compare that to Dharma's put it in the blender product.

The shop in the front had all manner of marbled goods; boxes covered in marbled paper, stationary, note cards, intricately decorated leather goods, it was so beautiful and inspring. Now I'm all excited about marbling at home again.  I think I'm going to kick start that with a class at the Center for the Book in San Francisco.

We had the afternoon free after the visit with Maria; the rest of the group took the train out to Prato to visit the textile museum. The museum, an old textile mill, is a stop on the European Route of Industrial Heritage (this route bears closer scrutiny; lots of textile museums, mining operations, and railways, etc), and apparently has a large collection of very old textiles and an excellent conservation workshop. They gave it mixed reviews, I'm guessing on how well it met their individual interests; I regretted not going. I spent the afternoon with my feet up; my feet and ankles had mysteriously swollen (salt? heat? too much walking? a combo?), and I wanted to be fresh for the weaving the next morning.

Textile tour in Florence and beyond! Before the tour...

Did I mention I went to Italy for a textile tour?  I've been back a couple of weeks now, working through the photos and trying to digest everything I did and saw.  The next few blog posts will be about the trip, but I broke it into a few pieces for readability. Photos of my time in Florence prior to the tour are here; most of them have identifying text in the Info section of the photo.

I'd booked myself into the Handwoven Textile Tour with the Tour Studio; I'd tried to join them last year but it was cancelled when the other participants backed out. That ended up being ideal for me, since I'd spent so much time in Japan last year. It was the first time they'd run the tour, so there were no reviews, so I wondered how it would go... It's Italy, right? It would have to be good?

It was extraordinary.

Torre della Pagliazza at the Piazza Santa Elisabetta;
6th or 7th century tower now part of the Hotel Brunelleschi. 

I flew into Florence a couple of days prior to the tour start to get some of the jet lag out of my system before meeting up with our guides, Sarah and Simon, and the four others on the tours.  For the first two nights, I stayed at the Hotel San Firenze on the Piazza di San Firenze; it's in a great location, with lovely quiet rooms, and a great breakfast. During the first couple of days, I saw the outside of the Duomo (line to get inside was hours long), the Ponte Vecchio and other points of interest around the old part of the city. I had tickets for the Uffizi Gallery (pro tip, get your tickets online ahead of time!), which was amazing, and did Elyse Weiner's IJourney Florence  audio walking tour.  This tower was on Elyse's tour... it's one of the older buildings in the area, and sits on top of some Roman ruins... And it's right across the street from a charming little store that sells some amazing trims!

Note that there's a lot of must-see places in Florence that I didn't see. The reason is that DH and I plan on spending a couple of weeks in Italy for our 25th anniversary next year, so I was saving a couple of special places to see for the first time with him. 

I'd been in touch with the rest of my tour mates prior to the tour; they all belong to the same weaving guild in Rochester, New York. These ladies are amazing weavers, and were a pleasure to tour with and I wish they lived closer! Two of them, Gretchen and Eileen, were already in Florence the night before the tour, and were kind enough to include me in their dinner plans at Il Santo Bevitore, saving me from eating alone again at a sidewalk cafe. Great choice! Turns out Eileen is a foodie.  After dinner, I walked back to my hotel across the Arno, watching lightening striking in Florence's dramatic skies, the Ponte Vecchio in the distance...

Eileen and I met the following day and toured the Florence museum of Anthropology. They have a lovely international collection, but few local artifacts. We checked out Casa dei Tessuti, an amazing fabric store, then had gelato at an amazing place that I was unable to find later... and returned to our tour hotel, Palazzo Guadagni.  That night we hooked up as a group and started the tour... 

View from the Ponte Vecchio

It's summer vacation!!!

I cannot begin to tell you the glee with which I am greeting the end of the school year and the beginning of my summer vacation. After decades of working, I can finally appreciate what it will be like to have completely unstructured time, for those few brief months before I start school again mid August.

I was so delighted about it today, that I bought DH a trash can for the garage. Now that's love.

I'm thinking about my fashion illustration class. The instructor claimed she could teach anyone to draw a fashion figure. Here's my sketch the first day of class, and my final project in watercolor, titled "Macy's Sells Hijabs".  HUGE difference. My thanks to Kathleen for all her help!

I am a little disturbed by the implications for women's positive body images, and the effects drawings like this the self esteem of women who think they should look like this.  These are not human body proportions!!! A part of me is sad to have participated in the celebration of unattainability. On the other hand, I learned a lot about figure drawing that would be fairly easy to adapt to more realistic people, and that was my goal in the class; to be able to render human-like figures in more than pencil with clothing that I might want to wear; I think I can do this now.

I'll end this, then, with my happy palette, which would make a splendid fabric, no?

Delavan!

I made Delavan, from Seamwork, as my final exam project for my Intermediate Sewing class.  I bought a year subscription, which gives me one pattern a month, more or less, or downloadable patterns.

Not yet hemmed, but already photobombed.
The green collar really calms it down...

This was the first one I tried to assemble, by taping all the pieces together. It was an unhappy experience... I ended up taping the pieces I wanted to trace to the breakfast bar with blue tape, tracing them, then moving to the next piece; this mostly worked, except ALL the sizes are on the same paper, and it's nearly impossible to find the lines on some of the pieces as they're very close together. But I got it done and made a muslin, then started on the inevitable changes:

• I altered the pattern to move the sleeve edge of the shoulder seam back as it was not positioned correctly on my shoulder.
• Per R's suggestion, I added a bit of a horizontal dart to the back to deal with slightly sloping shoulders.  
• I lengthened it two inches on the body and sleeves. 
• The sleeves were set a little low, so we moved those up a little into the bodice... 

Ut-oh! When I made it up in muslin it looked awful. I think there were issues with the sleeve placement.  In retrospect, when I moved the shoulder back, I didn't adjust the shoulder seam clip on the sleeve. Also, I took so much off the armhole, that the sleeve head was about the same size as the armhole, and it should be slightly larger.

And, when I lengthened the cute short slouchy jacket, it just looked big and slouchy, and I hated it.  I think adding one inch in length would have been plenty...  Anyways, R came up with the idea of making it into a vest instead, as I was starting to run out of time to finish it and was getting paniced. So I changed my fabric plan and used one of the beautiful batiks S had brought me from Indonesia; I swapped out the interfacing to a coordinating green, which reduces the yellow next to my face, and I like it.

Who sez I can't rock yellow!

Specific features of the vest that were learning opportunities for me were:

• Most of the seams are finished with Hong Kong bias binding; Super Fancy!!!  But think through what happens when seams come together before you sew.
• I learned about shawl collars: take them slow and draw the seam allowance on the set in corner seam bit.
• And curved pieces: press seam open before you turn, so you don't get little points on your curves.
• Fitting remains a struggle for me.

And another photo,  because it makes me happy...

In other news:

• My good friends M and B were in town on Sunday, and came to have lunch with us... I made Carne Adovada, some garlickly rice, and a wonderful coleslaw with a lime dressing. Yummy! I made the Adovada the night before, then heated it in the slow cooker while the rice cooker handled the rice; the coleslaw came together quickly in the morning, so I was free to take a short hike with the guys before lunch. So nice to spend time with old friends!
• I am sewing the buttons on a new pajama top, and that'll be done... 
• I continue to knit on the forever skirt, but it's getting longer!  
• I've also picked a travel project for my upcoming trip... I promise to share once it's in progress. 
• And I signed up for a 3 day Anna Zilboorg class next October, so will need to select some yarn from my stash, or dye some...

What I want to do this summer...

Maybe I need a bigger coffee...

Let's start with a cup of coffee as I think I'll need a lot of caffeine to get all of the things that I want to get done over the summer. This is in addition to hosting my niece for a visit (can't wait!!!), working out, and tending the garden.  Suspecting I'll have to trim the list a bit but here it is in it's initial state! Other than the two timelines, these are grouped by craft. I've emboldened the ones I think are priority.  I'll strike through anything I finish!

Between now and the end of May when I leave on vacation, I'd like to:

• Weave the other bootlace for DH, put aglets on them and deploy to his boots.
• Sew together Delavan for class
• Sew up the the other PJ top that's cut and waiting.
• Sew together the blocks for my pinwoven shawl.
• Clear the loom of the black and white scarf I don't like.

Over the summer (June 15-August 15), I'd like to:

Mosaic:

Isn't this pretty? I must weave it.

• Mosaic the two table tops for the aquarium stand, one flowers, the other geometric.

Quilting:

• Make a baby sized donation quilt.
• Get the Pub quilt quiltable.
• Kit up the Christmas quilt.
• Finish one or both of my Judy Niemeyer quilt tops.

Sewing:

• Sew up a cute little zipper bag thingy with fabric from my stash, or solar printed. 

Weaving:

• I promised K a back scrubber!
• Make some bootlaces for my brother; would be fun to dye one of the warp threads.
• Bootlaces for Frank
• Reverse engineer and weave that fabric I saw in class for my fall tailoring class.
• Weave a rep rug.
• Start a Navajo Tapestry.
• Create a bag out from a fabric on my RHL, an inkle band, and a braided closure as an example for 4H.
• Weave up that kitchen towel kit that's been in my stash for 2 years.

Dyeing:

• Dye the rest of my warps
• Dye some fabric for a shirt, then make the shirt; maybe a camp shirt with buttons and all.

Knitting

• Fingerless mitts to match my Ram Tam.
• Finish the skirt I'm knitting.
• Knit Oasis (vacation knitting).
• Knit Pebble beach shawl (vacation knitting).

Oh yeah, and join the Tour de Fleece. Maybe on Team Overcommitted. It's all doable, right?

Racing to finish!

Lots of progress, I'm on a finishing streak. I've got a bunch of things finished or close to finished:

• The Tam is done; see my cute little sheeps?  I'd started it at a Stitches class by Candance Eisner Strick. When we got to the center, she gave us two design options, and some graph paper in case we wanted to design it ourselves; then mentioned none of her students had ever done their own design! So.... yeah. I call it Rama Tama Ding Dong. I'm delighted with it. 
• The Ruana is done. It's so comfy and warm that I could live it in; I want 10 of these, in every color. I took all the pieces down to my knitting retreat and my buddy K helped me figure out what to do next; basically, I hemmed the back on my machine (who wants to sit on fringe?) then picked up and knitted along the inside edges; I did a 3 needle bindoff to about the 1/2 way point. Same process for the outside edges, except without the join... a quick wash and press, and it lays relatively straight.
• The blue top for my class is done; photos for that and the other sleeveless top will make it into my Q2 finished items post! I'm now working on my Delavan jacket. I've done one muslin and made mods, now for muslin 2 and on to the jacket.
• 59 out of 60 squares are done for my pin woven shawl. 
• I'm making DH a back scrubby that matches the new bathroom. It's off the loom but still needs hems and finishing. He knows it's coming but I still pretend it's a surprise.

I also took my last workshop for awhile... It was a 2 day Kathrin Weber dye workshop sponsored by the local guild. The first day was fabulous... but sadly I had such a bad headache all night before the second day that I couldn't make the second class.  I ended up with one dyed skein and one dyed warp, both of which I adore, and a lot of info that I will use to dye the other warps I wound in preparation for the class.

Other than that, I'd like to concentrate on my two college classes; putting together a knitting kit for my trip to Italy; and finishing whatever else I can before I head to Europe. Oh yeah, that and compiling a list of what I want to get done over the summer. Looking forward to that.