Scarf made with variable sized RH segments

    I've been experimenting with different-sized RH segments placed together in one rigid heddle.  
Having finished the scarf, this is what I've seen:

I was a bit shy about moving the heddle up and down for the two sheds - didn't want the parts that are rubber-banded together to separate.  While I often use only one hand to move the heddle, here I've been using both hands, grabbing the top left and right.  It wasn't hard to get into the rhythm of using both hands.   I still want a few more rubber bands, though, including one in the center. 

I had expected problems with the unstretchy cotton rug warp (which was on the left and right) and the very stretchy and thicker wool warp (which was in the middle).  After awhile, tension became an issue because the warp yarns have different stretch, but also because they take up different thickness on the cloth beam as the cloth is woven.  I ended up putting some sticks on the back beam under the thicker warps so that the weaving would be straighter.  After I took the cloth off the loom, though, and it wasn't under tension, much of the differences resolved.  However, as with any piece with different thickness warps, there is still some variability.  While the picks look straight, the cloth bubbles from the different thicknesses - but that's part of the fun here.

There is some "tracking" because there are spots where there were gaps in the heddle (between the different-sized segments).  These areas look fine, going along with the thick/thin flavor of the scarf.  I could minimize this next time by sleying threads through the slots between the segments; I wasn't confident this would all hold together and didn't want any stray threads, but it would have been fine.  Fulling during finishing minimized, but didn't eliminate, the tracking. 

I wove leaning the loom up against a table instead of on my lap, because it's easier to get to the down shed without wrestling with the heddle - and I did not want to wrestle my rubber-banded heddle.  
Even though the "holes" on my variable heddle are a bit lower than on the conventional heddle for my loom, the shed was still okay.  I was able to use stick shuttles, but wonder if it's too small for boat shuttles.

The differences in the yarns are nicely highlighted.  This was a stash scarf, and while I had colors I liked together (blue and white with splashes of red and black), I didn't have any "art' yarn that went with them.   Next time I'll use a different color scheme so that I can use my more funky yarn; somehow there is still a lot of yarn in my stash to choose from. 

    One thing I didn't do yet was to cut the segments smaller.  For example, the 5-dent segment is 3-4 inches wide, but I'd like to work with smaller segments of really wide yarn.  My DH says he can do it. 

    Could I have done something similar with a conventional rigid heddle that's big enough for the fattest yarn, say a 5-dent heddle? (like the 5-dent heddle section I'm using for the bulkier yarns.)  Yes, but the thinner yarns (those that are going through the 12-dent sections) would be spread out a lot, or else would be sleyed with several threads for each dent.  Either would give a different look. 

    Of course, it would be possible to have this kind of variability with a conventional table or floor loom.  You'd thread through the individual heddles, then space the threads through a reed that's big enough for the thickest yarn.  You'd also double-up the thinner yarns in the individual reed dents.

    But it's so much easier to direct warp a RH loom.  So these variable segments used in one rigid heddle are just tailor-made for a RH loom.