A friend who lives in Italy asked for a violin to be made which will be presented to his friend, a resident of California. This is the table blank of Italian spruce waiting to be glued up. The lights warm the edges prior to applying the hot hide glue.

Susanna Prince, the jeweler who makes the silver labels for each fiddle, was showing me her rolling mill a few weeks back. She puts a piece of silver through the mill with a flower petal or leaf over it and when it comes out on the other side, the imprint of the petal (or leaf) has been pressed into the silver. It didn't take too long for the idea to grow between us to take a shaving of wood and do the same thing for the violin labels. And from that it was only a baby step to using a shaving from the same piece of wood used in the violin itself. So now, thanks to her unbridled creative thinking, the silver label that accompanies each fiddle will have an imprint of the instrument's top, sort of like the fiddle's fingerprint.

The Mighty Rolling Mill

This year at Folklife on the narrative stage, I will be part of a presentation on practical acoustics, specifically regarding violins. Joining me will be Rick Davis of Running Dog Guitars, who will offer the guitar perspective on the same subject. The hour long presentation will be tailored to whomever shows up and what they, as a collective audience, are interested in talking about. Hopefully we will also have a practical demonstration or two as accompaniment to our dialog; maybe even a diagram.

Warm weather in Seattle, finally. We had spring in January and winter in April. Rosalie has gone to Berkely to live. Fiorenza (left) is at the Ballard shop of Lasley & Russ waiting for a date for the prom. Two fiddles in production and a fiddle and a viola about to commence.

Finally ready to play, Rosalie will travel to Berkeley next week to spend some time in California. More pictures can be seen in the gallery. Tom Collicott and I spent a few hours in the studio today photographing four violins, this one, Rosalie, a Strad model, Fiorenza, and the two fiddles I play. As you can see, Tom takes some very fine pictures.

Recently a larger room became available and this past weekend, we(meaning I) moved into it. With about 40% more floor space, it seems vast and luxurious. You can see the two newest fiddles hanging to the right of the window. Fiorenza and Rosalie, both waiting for fingerboards, setup and a little polishing.

I'm still in the process of finding places to put things, but it's wonderful to be able to move to the band saw without impaling myself on the alignment bolt.

Rosalie, the small scale full size fiddle, is finally ready to set up. Here she is shown hanging out waiting for the fingerboard to be glued in place.