The megado has landed

Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time. I was looking at facebook just as Pat Foster posted on the Megado loom group that she was wondering what to do with her 20 year old Megado loom, she was 90 years old, not it the best of health and down sizing, would it be cheeky to try to sell it? The Megado is the flag ship loom from Louet with 32 shafts and an electronic computer controlled dobby, my dream loom! Brand new they retail for over 18,000 euros, Pat was asking £1500. I immediately registered that I would be very interested, but someone beat me to it. 30 mins later she got back to me to say the first buyer had dropped out...was I still interested? 

I would have to go to Reading, disassemble the loom and take it away asap. With Susie's dance and yoga lessons the car is only available to use Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I decided it was possible.

So Saturday I left the house at 6.30 and drove pretty much none stop to Calais (11hrs). The next morning I got the 6am ferry to Dover and drove to Reading to meet Pat and her sister Dorothy. Two lovely ladies with amazing life stories. Pat is an amazing weaver and it turns out that Cally Booker (another amazing weaver) is Dorothy's daughter!

It took a few hours to disassemble and load everything into the car, thankfully Dennis a friend of Pat's was available to give me a hand loading. I had already taken the rear seats out of the car so that there would be enough space for the castle to stand upright, but in the end it didnt quite fit so I had to lay it on its side fit. Everything else had to be completely disassembled. Pat was very kind to give me some yarn, some books, four extra reeds and CDs that she no longer had space for. 

Back to Dover for the 6pm ferry. Both crossings were very windy but amazingly the sea was calm as a millpond. Good for me as I am seasick. At Calais I was expecting to have to pay VAT and import tarifs, but amazing there were no checks and I drove straight out of the port into the town.

Next morning the long drive home. 12 hours due to horrific traffic in Paris and protests from the farmers blocking the autoroutes around Toulouse.

Today I have reassembled the loom, but not yet plugged it in. A few missing pieces, which I have refabricated and I hadn't realised now much higher the breast beam is on the Megado compared to the Spring, so I will have to make a new bench.

Spring and Megado Side by the side, The Megado has a 115cm wide beam compared to the Spring which is 90cm although in this photo they look like it is the opposite.