So, what would make you, the day after a 12 hour flight home from Japan, turn this:

Into this?:

I’d like to say something clever, like “reverse jetlag”,  or “desperately delayed burst of house pride”, but that’s hardly the case.  Rather, it took a wolf’s influence… the arrival of the Schacht Baby Wolf I’d ordered in the middle of the night from a hotel room in London, on the last day of September…

It’s a folding loom, with 26″weaving width. 

Being the sort of person I am, I blew straight past the 4-shaft phase, and straight to an 8 shaft (10 treadle) loom.  My expectation is that this will be not only my first, but my only loom.  Not everyone in the house is quite so sanguine, as our basement slowly gets devoured by my fibre-consuming toys…

Of course, having 8 shafts, it also came with 800 heddles to install on those glaringly empty shafts.  It occurred to me that playing with 800 fiddly, loose metal bits was not something to attempt while jetlagged and/or tired.  From experience, I can say that was the right expectation.    Sigh.  They pick up easily.

I still don’t have the final pieces in place, not even the cords to attach the treadles to the shafts — but here’s a quick view of what it looks like with one shaft raised (which will form a shed through which one shoots the shuttle with a bobbin, once it’s all warped up and set to go).  You can see — the shaft is pushed up by the “jacks” underneath.

Well, lots more to learn and fiddle with.  It’ll be fun.  And take a while.

And, why, yes, that is a complete Atari 1040st system in boxes in the background above.  Complete with black and white AND colour monitors!  And a 30Mbyte hard drive.  Any takers? 🙂