We have landed in Hanoi and spent a week walking, eating and looking. There are apparently only one or two violin makers or restorers in the country, a good place to be a big fish in a little pond.

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.

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

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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.

Three new fiddles in the drying cabinet. The one on the right is Alafaire, just begun finishing. In the center is Novinha, a Del Gesu model, and on the left is Ela, a Strad model. Alafaire is bound for Italy in the fall.