Thoughts on Megado

I had the opportunity to weave a scarf on the Megado in our local weaving shop last weekend. I think it's always interesting to try out different looms. Here are my observations about this one:

First, I LOOOOOVE Louets! I was already prejudiced on this point. I have a Louet Kombo and a Louet Spring myself. They are quiet, well engineered, and they look nice. I know that appearances aren't really a big priority for looms, but I see it as a nice bonus. Anyway, the Megado fit all of those expectations. The only noise I noticed was a click each time the (computerized) dobby prepared for the next shed. The shed was nice and clear. The tension stayed very even with the floating breast beam. Treadling was easy, even on such a big loom.

I found weaving on the Megado to be a little slower than weaving on a plain ol' treadle loom. This is because I generally tie up my treadles in a walking configuration. That way I can raise one treadle, lower another, and beat all at the same time. With the Megado, the rhythm wasn't as fast. It was lower the treadle, throw the suttle, beat, raise the treadle, and so on.

I did like the computerized dobby. I usually plan my drafts out on the computer anyway, so it doesn't take any more time to set up the dobby than it does to tie up treadles. I can see that pegging dobby bars would take much longer, especially for a complicated draft. Also, with a manual dobby, you are limited by the number of bars you have. A couple of ladies in our guild have Octados, and they are quite often borrowing dobby bars from each other because they don't have enough. With a computer dobby, there are no such limits.

The other thing I learned was that I love treadling. I don't really see a dobby loom in my future. I got a little bored with just one treadle. Up, down, up, down, same treadle, over and over. Not that a dobby doesn't have some real advantages. Without a dobby, you can easily run out of treadles for many drafts, and a dobby allows you to weave many more interesting patterns. I have to admit that the pattern I wove was realatively simple. It was a straight threading and treadling on 16 shafts. I think that weaving a more complicated pattern (maybe something in the vein of Bonnie Inouye) would be much more interesting. But as for me, I weave for fun, and I think that a big part of the fun is treadling.

In summary, I think the Megado is a fabulous loom. It's not something that would make sense for me to buy, but I am really glad that there is one available for me to use occasionally if I so choose.