chicago school of violin making

Luthier Lammily

My thoughts on the new Lammily doll:

  • Great idea! I support the concept.

  • Barbie’s proportions are obviously disturbing, but I used to excuse some of it as due to design challenges (i.e. maybe joint articulation forced weird things to happen to her legs). Not anymore! Lammily is well proportioned AND more articulated than Barbie. In fact, I think as a reference model, I would even consider her over those wooden mannequin thingies that artists use.

  • Since her appeal is largely due to how “real” and thus relatable she is, the request questions are pouring in in their comments sections: “When will you make a Lammily with different skin/eye/hair color, body shape, fashion accessories, etc.?” It’ll be interesting to see how they develop “career options” for Lammily. So let me just save them the trouble of research & development should they ever decide to make….

1214_luthier lammily

luthier lammily clothing and accessories

Explanation of all the clothing/accessories:

  1. Apron, duhh.

  2. Work boots.

  3. Magnifiers.

  4. Biceps/triceps enhancer for one arm.

  5. Plane. I wish I knew about planes when I was a kid. Little brass fingerplanes are so cute, so why aren’t more girls into them?? I didn’t know what one was until college!

  6. Bandaids are an important part of our lives.

  7. Jeans.

  8. Plaid shirt with a hole on the elbow. Why plaid, you ask? Because this is pretty much an everyday occurrence at our school:

1214 luthier lammily 3

Yeah, I made this entire post just to lead up to this photo.

Joint Pain #1: tender loving care

Joining violin plates with the jointer plane is so tricky and so important that it’s the ONLY step that we don’t get to do on our first violin. But remember, I’m on my SECOND VIOLIN! which means plenty of fodder for my new violin making mini-series: JOINT PAIN!

introduction to wooden jointer plane for joining violin plates

 

…. Thank goodness the last panel is a hyperbole. I did bump the vise. But it didn’t fall. And she wasn’t horrified. In fact, I think she was not surprised at all. And it has a safety net under it (aka a big trash can).