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Look, You @*&$ing Scarf

Let's just contemplate a nice artistic photo first, shall we?

A close-up of mostly grey with some teal warp threads, emerging from a narrow, out of focus band of grey weft-faced fabric in the foreground and passing through the slots and holes of a white plastic and light wood rigid heddle, forming a delicate criss-cross pattern.
I have been personally victimized by you.
I was all excited to attempt a simple four-shaft twill for this scarf, using string heddles. String heddles are my friends. I've done great things with string heddles. I was armed with...a lot of them, and a number of dowels to string them on.

A view through the triangular tunnel formed by raised and flat grey warp threads. The raised threads are held up by saturated fuchsia loops of fine smooth string, and the shadows make a complex, mostly-straight-line pattern on the wooden base of the loom.
You sit on a throne of lies.
That part went great, and then I started testing sheds. Shed one is pretty good—not perfectly even, but clear enough to work with.

A view through the triangular tunnel formed by raised and flat grey warp threads. The raised threads are held up by salmon-pink loops of fine smooth string, and saturated fuchsia loops of the same string rest on the threads forming the left slope of the tunnel. The shadows make a complex, mostly-straight-line pattern on the wooden base of the loom.
Doesn't look too bad...
Shed two is where it starts getting exciting. Looks grand from here.

A view through the shallow triangular tunnel formed by raised and flat grey warp threads. The raised threads are held up by salmon-pink loops of fine smooth string, barely visible over the piles of saturated fuchsia loops sitting on and through the threads forming the left side of the triangle. The shadows make a complex, mostly-straight-line pattern on the wooden base of the loom.
Until you look at the real shed.
But this is the actual shed. The cotton string heddles don't want to let the threads drop down again, especially with the influence of the second set of heddles. The shed cleared a little more with some strumming, but I have a sinking suspicion...

A view through the shallow, tangled triangular tunnel formed by raised and flat grey warp threads. The raised threads are held up by white loops of fine smooth string, barely visible over the piles of saturated fuchsia and salmon-pink loops sitting on and through the threads forming the left side of the triangle.
That's already disastrous, and it isn't even the front of the shed.
Hm. Even the back of shed three isn't passable.

A view through the impassable triangular tunnel formed by slightly raised and flat grey warp threads. Ttangled-looking piles of saturated fuchsia, salmon-pink, and white loops pf fine smooth string sit on and through the threads forming the extremely shallow triangle, in places filling the open space at the center.
hahano.
And shed four is straight up disastrous (it's also the shed I'd intended to use a spare stick shuttle to separate, so I wouldn't need four sets of string heddles...as if that would matter).

A loom with most of the warp untied and coiled under the wound back beam, with a few threads at the left side pulled straight and through the rigid heddle, whih is lashed to the front beam with salmon-pink string. Pink fuzz covers the center sections of the parallel strands of the warp.
Rethreading. Again.
So I stared at the loom for a few minutes, swore a bit, made some tea, and pulled every last string heddle off again. Yes, they left fuzz everywhere. It's very annoying. I also untied the warp (again) and threaded the heddle (again) and tied the warp (again) and miraculously, despite the lack of a cross to keep the warp in order, nothing appears twisted.

A shot from above of a rigid heddle table loom made of light natural wood, with mostly grey and some teal warp threads wound onto the back beam and tied to the front beam. The heddle is propped on edge in the center of the loom, and six rows of crushed toilet paper are woven into the base of the warp.
Glory glory hallelujah.
I used toilet paper to spread the warp and to give me some length for twisted fringe eventually.

A rigid heddle table loom of light natural wood, with mostly grey and a few teal wrap threads wound onto the back beam and tied to the front. The heddle is tucked behind the small heddle stand in the center of the loom, and six rows of crushed toilet paper fill the beginning of the warp, followed by horizontally striped grey and teal weft-faced fabric. The background of the fabric is grey, with two narrow teal stripes evenly spaced, then a wider teal stripe, then two narrow teal stripes, before the fabric continues in plain grey.
Still liking the colors, at least.
And discovered when I started weaving that my loom, sans velcro to hold the warp ends, can't maintain enough tension for a nice, balanced plain weave. Instead, I have the world's softest weft-faced rug. The relatively wide sett and soft yarn keep the fabric fairly drapey, too; with luck, that won't translate to poor wearing.

A close-up of grey and teal striped weft-faced fabric, showing the slight warm heathering in the grey yarn and the depth of color in the teal.
Look at the nice stripes. Ignore everything else.
Of course, because the loom can't maintain tension without its velcro, I can't wind up the cloth to advance the warp. I smell yet another set-up adventure in my future (backstrap! Surely that won't fail me...).

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