Challenges with Lady Di

I have Lady Di up and running now, but there have been a couple snags:

• Height. A number of misc issues related to my short torso and short arms, which I won’t go into because it’s just too tedious. I have been on the phone with Leclerc, the loom manufacturer, and have been really impressed by their willingness to offer support, even though I bought the loom secondhand. They’re going on their annual shutdown/vacation from now until Aug 4, but gave me an interim solution until they get back.
• Temperamental treadling. I was having trouble with the loom shutting down randomly until I adjusted the timing in my weaving software. Took me awhile to figure it out, though.
• Shaft frames catching on each other. I sorted it out eventually; the treadle cord was pushing one frame into another. I adjusted it.

Now I’m having another series of issues, this time related to the specific project. I’ve included a photo (click here for the larger version) so you can see what’s going on. Basically, I have three problems going:

• Reed marks from the reed. I tried to be smart and thread two yarns easily through the same reed, one at 18 epi and one at 24 ends per inch. I figured 3/dent and 4/dent in a six-dent reed should work out well. As a result, I’m getting reed marks, vertical lines of empty space in the finished cloth (where the metal teeth of the reed left unwoven spaces).
• Not enough ends per inch. The resulting cloth looks too loose and is see-through. I’m going to have to resley at a much closer sett. Haven’t decided what yet.
• Some yarns aren’t “catching” (you can see some threads moving across the surface at bottom right, not woven in). I’ve looked and looked and can’t seem to figure this out, but it seems to be a bigger problem with the shafts that are furthest back from the loom. My suspicion is that they’re simply not raising high enough, so some threads get skipped. It may require further adjustments.

Sometimes it feels like I’ll never get to the bottom of all these new “challenges”, but I keep reminding myself that it’s a learning curve. Once I have her adjusted and have figured out her foibles, I hope weaving will go easier!