Belly Of The Beast

Day 58: I'm not as young as I used to be, and nothing drives that home quite as firmly as having to crawl around on my hands and knees in a tight space. However, it was time a postponed task was taken in hand, to wit, changing out the stretched and fraying tie-up cords on my big loom. I had only recently become aware of Texsolv cords and heddles and decided to upgrade, but while I was at it, I also wanted to balance the treadle/jack/harness setup so that all sheds lifted equally. Hindsight being ever so much clearer than foresight, I should have taken care of that twenty-five years ago when I first assembled the loom, but I was anxious to get started with weaving and did a "close enough for gov'mint work" job of it. It never really bothered me that the #2 harness raised an inch more than #1, #3 and #4 until working on the summer-and-winter coverlet. It didn't cause any mistakes, but it was bothersome and I swore I'd fix it once the piece was done. The "bonker loom" (Swedish band loom, my newest aquisition and Christmas-present-to-self) was rigged with Texsolv cord. "Hmmm," said I. "This looks like a good idea." Yesterday evening, I spent an hour under the loom, getting cramps in places I didn't know you could get cramps, pinching my fingers in the jacks, breaking my nails on old chain, fiddling and fussing until I had it just right. And if some minor tweaks need to be made, it's ever so much easier to do with the Texsolv peg system. Scratch one resolution, and it's not even the New Year yet!