Modifications to a Leclerc Minerva

I have done a little renovation on the Minerva; here is a picture of what was taken off . . .
Now a picture of the new and improved Minerva . . .
The sectional parts from the first back beam and the second back bar were taken off, because I have been having tension problems. The problem came from when each one inch section was wound; it was wound at a different tension. So I have changed to the same style of back beam as my Mum’s Louet Spring.

Also I am using the same warping method as her. An old raddle was found and I spent a morning sanding off the burrs. The raddle was then tied to the castle of the little Minerva. As you can see it came from a larger loom but it worked!
This was the loom waste, it was for the entire scarf, ok, I had a little bit more from the trimming of the fringe but it was just a little bit more. My last project, the blue Finnish lace runner, the loom waste was huge and shameful. For this alone the renovation was worth it but there is more good stuff to come! For my project I chose to do Bead Leno again. I went with perled mercerized cotton that was hand dyed with lime green and yellow. It was a little elastic and that made for a strange effect as I was weaving. Some of the twists relaxed and flattened out, I had no idea what the finished scarf would look like.
Now at the end of the warp, I was amazed by the shed that I was able to get. Instead of having to finish weaving when the first knot reached the top of the back beam, I was able to weave until the back bar reached the back of the heddles. It was fantastic!
The new weaving skill that I learned with this project was hem stitching. I really like the finish. Hopefully I will remember how to hem stitch for the next project!
After washing the scarf the sticky fringe made lovely long corkscrews so I had to do a fringe finish that would keep the threads seperated. Four threads knotted at one inch with two green seed beads.
The finished project was a total surprise, the scarf looks totally different from my other Bead Leno scarves. Parts of the warp collapsed and others over twisted which makes for a very interesting texture.
I made a necklace scarf!