Little by Little part ???

I'm beginning to feel like 'little by little' is my new mantra!

Doug started to assemble the loom but one of the things I wanted to do was add more heddles.  I had a pretty good idea that doing that before the loom was completely assembled would be A Good Idea, so this afternoon we started increasing the number of heddles on each shaft.

It isn't that Louet is stingy - it's just that I tend to weave with fairly fine(ish) yarns (not as fine as some, but still) and I'm not exactly sure where my new 'leisure' time is going to take me in terms of rabbit holes.  I've woven lots of tied weaves and while the loom comes with extra on shafts one and two, some tied weaves have four shafts for the ties.  Thinking ahead to possibly weaving at 36" wide with perhaps more than 32-36 epi, I thought it might be good to beef up the numbers on the first four shafts.

Since I also love fancy twills, there is a good chance that I might go further down the road that direction.  I've seen some really interesting things happening with colours and networked threadings, some deflected double weave, something christened Corris (by Margaret Coe - might need to find out more) plus I have Bonnie Inouye's workshop notes with lots of intriguing possibilities there.

So I ordered extra heddles, and today between the two of us, we managed to increase the number of heddles from 100 to 150 on shafts 1 and 2, 50 to 150 on shafts 3 and 4, and from 50 to 100 on the rest.

I'm pretty sure that will take me down any rabbit hole I decide to dive into!  But just in case, I have some extras...

However, I have also been warned that the Megado doesn't like to have 'extra' heddles bunched at the ends of shafts so I'm going to have to remember to intersperse any extras along the width of the cloth.

The Megado has many things in common with the AVL.  It also has many things that are different.  Both looms came as 'flat packs' (so to speak) and Doug is worrying away at the assembly, routinely consulting the instruction manual.  So far it's been pretty straight forward.  But he isn't rushing and that's fine by me.

The Fanny is now re-positioned and hopefully tomorrow I can clear enough of the work table off to rough sley the next place mat warp.  There are two warps wound, just waiting to get put into the loom.  I've worried away at some of the administriva.  The next writing project is in the able hands of my editor.  Packing for the next trip needs to happen, but otherwise?  I might actually feel like weaving on the weekend. 

And for those wondering, I do cut my heddles apart.  Did that on the AVL, and the shafts are 'tight' enough on the Megado that cutting them apart is going to make threading much easier, especially for any tied weave that I decide to explore.  I will also be writing on the top of the bottom shaft in at least three locations the number of the shaft.  I found this most helpful in threading the AVL with 16 shafts.  The shafts are so much closer and tighter fitting in the loom on the Megado, I'm definitely going to need a visual aid to keep track of the shafts in order to minimize errors.  The shafts aren't very thick, but should be thick enough to write a number on them.  Probably slanted orientation, not straight, just to further help me see them.