Heading down to  the Old Time Gathering in Portland this weekend to play some music and visit violin shops. Traveling with at least four and maybe five violins so if you're in Portland and want to play one, look for the fiddler with too many cases. If you go to the gallery of available instruments you can see the one's I'll be carrying: Novinha, Quara, and Ela, as well as the two I usually play.

Here's the scroll I've been working on, a slightly scaled up version of an Andrea Guarneri  violin scroll to go on a viola.

Spring has been slow in arriving in spite of several nice days. The second Filius is in the tanning booth, a Sanctus Seraphin model is on the bench and a Testore model  with the lightest back I've ever made is almost ready to close. A second trip to Italy was initiated this week and should happen in mid September. This will give me an opportunity to revisit the filius in Cremona as well as the other violins that live there and, even more important, to do more research on the risottos of Italy! Dan intends to go on this trip as well.

A Sanctus Seraphin came through a friends shop and I had the good fortune to sit and stare at it for a few hours. A wonderful opportunity and very timely with the first of the same model in the carving stages. There's no substitute for holding the instrument in your hand.

When Dan, my youngest son, and I visited Cremona this past summer, we both fell in love with a violin by Giuseppe Guarnarius filius Andreae and decided to make an instrument based on it. Here, at last, is Chiara. The original, made by the father of Guarnarius Del Gesu, shows a strong connection to the style of the Amati family. The fittings are of figured Myrtle.

Yesterday I dropped off these two  instruments at the L&R shop

.      

This is Ela, a Strad model.                           This is Novinha, a DelGesu model.

To illustrate how quickly clutter expands to fill the space it can occupy, this is after being in the new shop for about four weeks.

This is the newest iteration of the violinisto tag. It was made for me by Susanna Prince.

Well, at least close. RedDog arrived in NYC beginning on the 17th and ending on the 18th (Tom was the last). Cremona was  very intense; standing in the still, humid air of a small room filled with nine or ten Italian violins from the 16th and 17th centuries (mostly) ignoring the discomfort while trying to see everything for as long as possible. A really charming Guarnarius filius Andreae caught my eye. Dan said he wants a copy of it for his next fiddle and I concur. We walked through the narrow streets of the old city, ate memorable food and took a picture on Via Del Gesu. I will put up some pictures when I find them.