Education & Classes in Novi

After learning to knit at her grandmother's feet in Romania, owner and clothes designer Mihaela Manitiu now marshals her crafting acumen to lead classes where, according to Splash, "students learn to understand the essence of their creations and are not only instructed, but inspired." Picking up pointers in the art of European-style knitting, visitors craft elegant woolly compositions such as scarves and other cozy accouterments while getting acquainted with the materials and techniques needed to knit their very own memoirs.

For more than 75 years, Cranbook Academy of Art has enjoyed a reputation as one of the nation's leading independent graduate schools for art and design. Renowned graduates such as designer Florence Knoll, architect Hani Rashid, and fiber artist Nick Cave all honed their craft on the verdant 315-acre campus, where crammed lecture halls are replaced with small studios and students enjoy one-on-one mentorships with the Artists-In-Residence. Designed to inspire creativity as much as possible, the academy supplies each student with his or her own private studio space, and allows artists to design their own program of study without formal boundaries or beret-based dress codes.

The Cranbrook campus is a work of art in itself, owing the design of its original buildings to famed Finnish architect Ellel Saarinen. The academy further inspires its graduate students and the surrounding community with a museum that grew out of the eclectic personal collection of George Booth in 1930, and has grown to focus on the art, craft, design, and architecture of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd centuries.

Flight 101 has been leading aspiring pilots into the skies for more than four decades. Students begin their avian education seated in a Cessna or Diamond Star aircraft, where they learn liftoff and landing procedures from FAA--certified instructors. All training sessions are held one on one and allow students to feed a fleeting itch for flight or work toward a private pilot license's 40 hours of flight time. Flight 101 operates out of a towered airport—enhancing radio communications and ground operations—and keeps an FAA examiner onsite to ensure clouds don’t form themselves into four-letter words.

I Wish Lessons’ professionally guided classes convene in various venues throughout Chicago, Boston, DC, and Detroit, uniting and educating like-minded learners in vibrant social settings. The company’s hundreds of teachers have educated countless learners while introducing them to new friends and planning private events, including birthday parties and baby showers. Classes broach a multitude of engaging, lighthearted subjects, such as beer and bacon pairing, scotch tasting, cupcake decorating, and sushi rolling.