Back

So, I'm back in the land of blogging. It's been a busy summer with lots going on and is not always easy to get to reading the blogs, leaving commments on the blogs and creating new posts too. I'm back now. I've left comments on all the family blogs.

Now I'll just have to come up with something clever to blog about.

Never mind, I can't think of anything right now, I'm going to make a cuppa tea.

Skateboarding off the dock

Here it is:


Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing

Grandsons' Visit

So this week was our grandson's summer visit. It was way too short, but we had a blast with them.


Although this picture is not very clear, I love it anyway because this is what Jamie looks like when we're playing cards or dominoes ... constantly giggling and being silly! He had us all laughing our heads off.






We hung out on the dock a lot, soaking up the nasty UV rays and drinking pop - okay, I had wine.

This is Jamie jumping off the dock into the water.
Just what summer holidays are all about.








Here's Jonathon during one of the Crazy 8's games. What a great smile!

This is something Jonathon has talked about doing for several years now. While we were on the dock, he tied off his skateboard so he wouldn't lose it and was riding it down the dock and into the water. He did different tricks that were fun to watch. (If I knew how to load video clips onto here I'd put one up, becuase they're quite cool!)

We had an awesome time eating junk food, homemade bread and just genereally hanging out.

Musical Instrument Construction Course

Okay, so here are the pictures of my violin. The first day we made templates from the plans and that took the whole day. It didn't seem like much at the end of the day, but it was a lot of work.

Day two we made the mould for the violin, I forgot to take a picture of it. It took a full day to make the mould and cut out where the corner blocks and end blocks go. Then I had to cut out the rectangles you see on the picture (below) with a coping saw for the clamps to fit into. Coping saws are quite the fun little gadget. It took me a while to get the hang of using it, and I was slow and not nearly as precise as I would have liked to have been.

Here's a picture of my work on day three, after I'd glued the corner blocks and the end blocks in place.





On day four two tornadoes went through the area and our class was cancelled due to a power outage at the school. That was really disappointing; we were all so anxious to get on with our projects.


However, the school is near the hospital, so day five, the electricity was back on in that area, (unlike where we live!) and we were back in action.

Here's my picture at the end of day five. You can see the side ribbing is all glued into place around the mould and it actually looks like it might be a violin some day! There are some mistakes, but I'm not pointing them out. I'm so excited that I was able to do something like that. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Eventually, when it comes off the mould, the corner blocks (pointy dark brown parts) will be inside the violin, but will be trimmed much smaller and the outside pointy bits will be cut down to the proper size. The two end blocks will be inside the violin too and the mould will be ready and waiting for my next violin.

Awesome course. Kudos to Philip Davis the instructor for his patience.

What the heck just happened???

Holy mackeral, is that what happens when you have electricity???

Finally after 6 days of candles, generators humming, ok, roaring and no hot water, we're back in the land of showers and dishwashers.

Now I'll blog the pix I from my course ... because I can!

Catching up a wee bit

OK, just to catch up.

Spamalot was awesome Jojo. I don't know that there was any time during the show when people weren't laughing. Lexiphage & I both laughed our behinds off.

I've been taking my Musical Instrument Construction course this week. I've learned sooooo much already. Yesterday, picked out the wood for our violins; I chose a Sitka Spruce (from Europe) for the front and Canadian bird's eye maple for the back and neck. Then we made templates from the plans, we're making a stradivarius copy. It took hours to make all the pieces we needed.

Today, we started working on our moulds. I didn't take pictures of my progress, but I'll take a couple tomorrow before I start, and after I'm done tomorrow and over the next few days, them I'll post them. There are some beautiful instruments being made by some really talented people. Everyone is willing to offer information, advice and the use of their tools.