#¤&@¤£# !!!

Why am I doing this??? And twice in a week, too...

I don't particularly like table looms. Then this thingy came my way, had 8 shafts and was cheap.




So I bought it, sight unseen. I mean, a loom is a loom, even if it is a table model, right?
I had very limited experience with metal heddles, but, thought I, a heddle is a heddle.
Then I wanted to test my new-to-me sample loom - and... soon found that I don't like (rather "hate") the heddles on this loom. They won't slide (except if I handle them one at a time), they tangle (how is still a mystery), the eyes are too small for all my heddle hooks...
So I wove one small narrow warp, and put it under a table.

Then came the guild's anniversary exhibitions, and we decided we needed a dog. The dog itself was made of hex mesh, but it also needed a tail. I decided to weave it a tail, on the Lillstina. (It also got vadmal ears, but they came from existing scraps)
I made a 5 cm-or-so warp, with 4 ends of steel wire (to shape the tail) and some rug warp. As the tail was only to be 20 cm-or-so, it was ok (sort of).



Again the loom was put under the table for a couple of years.
Next time it came out was for a "culture day".
This is me, weaving a shawl.



For that shawl, I really had to move some heddles. Couldn't figure out any way to do that in an even moderatlely efficient way, but got them moved.
- The shawl came out allright - a woollen stripe in the middle, wich created nice ruffles after wet finishing/fulling:



One-and-a-half year later, I needed some illustrations for an article. Did not want to try to warp the AVL with a meter-long warp, so out Lillstina came again. That was on Monday last.

But... apparently I have not had my share of, er, punishment? yet, 'cos as soon as that little warp was done, I decided to make another warp...

Dear readers - . How is one supposed to move heddles on a loom like this?!?
Fortunately, there was only one shaft (and fortunately, it was near the back) that needed more heddles. I had to pry the heddle bar out with a plier - and the only way I could figure out how to put on heddles was one-by-one... There is no way (that I can see) that the heddle frames can be taken out, and there is no way (that I can see) to put those new heddles on in a bunch. #¤&@¤£# !!!
Here it is, next-to-last shaft raised, heddle bars pried out of their holders.



(And it was a pain-in-my-thumbs to try to pry them back again... and no pliers big enough to use...)