Why the David Loom is Great for Taquete

First, to describe the Louet David loom - mine has 8 shafts and 10 treadles, and it is a reverse jack loom. What's a reverse jack? Well, with a regular jack loom, all your threads are at one level, you press a treadle that lifts some shafts. With the David loom, there are springs that pull all of your warp threads up. Instead of tyeing the treadles to LIFT some shafts, you tie the treadles on the David to pull shafts DOWN. This gives an excellent shed, since some threads are pulled up and some down, as you have with a countermarche loom. When not weaving, a post fits through cams on all of the shafts, lowering the pulled up threads so they don't have unnecessary tension when the warp is at rest.

As for taqueté - it's basically summer and winter with no tabbies. For each row of your pattern, you lift 1 and all of the pattern shafts that don't have color A in your design, and then throw a pick of color A. With 1 still lifted, you lift all of the pattern shafts that don't have color B and throw a pick of color B. If you've got three colors, well, you get the pattern. Then you repeat with shaft 2 and the pattern shafts. So if you have three colors, each row in your design will be woven with 6 picks.

Since the David loom is pulling shafts down, it's even easier. I've got the treadles tied up so the left four treadles each have one shaft tied to them, 1 2 3 and 4 in order. The right four treadles have 5, 6, 7 and 8 tied to them, in order. The middle two treadles are tied up for tabby - the left one is tied to 1 and 2, and the right is tied to 3 through 8.

Say the first row of my design has Color A for shafts 3 and 4. Now, I can press the treadles for 3 and 4, insert a pickup stick, then treadle 2 (so shaft 1 stays up) and then throw a pick of Color A. If my feet are long enough, I can actually press treadles 2, 3 and 4 at the same time and throw the pick, and I don't need the pickup stick. So the sequence becomes

2 + pattern shafts for color A, throw the A shuttle (= lift 1 and shafts not for A)
2 + pattern shafts for color B, throw the B shuttle
2 + pattern shafts for color C, throw the C shuttle
1 + pattern shafts for color A, throw the A shuttle
1 + pattern shafts for color B, throw the B shuttle
1 + pattern shafts for color C, throw the C shuttle

And you just repeat that sequence for each row. If one of the colors doesn't appear on a row of the design, you throw a pick of that color with just 1 or 2, whichever step you are on. If a color appears in all of the blocks, you can use the second tabby treadle plus 1 or 2. To me, it's much easier to think of treadling for the shafts where you want pattern to appear ("I have pattern on shafts 3 and 4, so I'll treadle 3 and 4), rather than having to do a mental translation "okay, I have pattern on shafts 3 and 4, so I need to treadle shafts 5 through 8."