Alrighty, here goes - I'm a 34 year old gal returning to my violin/fiddle after quite the hiatus. I self-taught myself in 1997 to play the fiddle and just loved playing celtic/cape breton music. My mother purchased me a secondhand violin from a friend of my grandfathers, and I was in L-O-V-E with her from the moment I held her. I was told she came from Maine, and in the inside is hand written Dec 1934.

I'm not quite sure why I abandoned it, time I suppose - I also had brought her to a luthier to do some work and he pretty much shot her down and exclaimed that he'd "never be able to make a bridge that small", and that she'd be a good fiddle but not for much else. I guess that disheartened me - not sure. I had a different luthier do work on her years prior, in fact he's the one that custom made me the bridge - sadly he's no longer with us.

Regardless, it's probably been close to 10 years since I've played and I dug my girl out last week, tossed some new strings on her and I'm in love again. I don't know if she was someone's first attempt at making a violin or a restoration not gone well, but she still plays quite well, weaker outside of 1st position but I'm not sure if that's me (likely) or her (could be both). I'm sure I may outgrow her at some point, but I'll deal with that when the time comes.

I bit the bullet and scheduled some lessons to break some bad habits, and I even ordered my first really decent bow - the Fiddlerman Carbon Fibre bow! My current bow is - gosh - close to 20 years old now, it's an old Glasser that has seen better days.

Amway, here's to restarting my journey and making great music!