Build your own Banjo!

A lovely new comment from Sue H reminds me that I haven't posted in over a week which is unusual for me and entirely due to being busy in nice ways with work and music. Here in Glasgow we are abuzz with Celtic Connections and I spent a fantastic weekend last weekend with my old pal Billie going to see Cherish the Ladies and learning to play the tin whistle. Everything I am knitting and sewing at the moment is slow and steady which is fine for my enjoyment but boring to blog about.

Instead wouldn't you like to know how to build your own banjo?! I was intrigued at 'traditional music group' last week when member Bill turned up with a banjo he had made from an old cigar box:

Isn't it a thing of beauty as well as thriftiness.

Bill tells me that in the States there are competitions between people who make their own instruments from found 'trash' like this ironing board banjo:


And here's Bill himself playing his cigar box back when it was a fiddle (before it became a banjo):

It's one of the lovely things about not working full time that I get to go to folk group on Friday lunchtime and meet fascinating folks like Bill doing amazing things. Lucky me.