Hi Catherine - I hate to tell you but moving heddles from one shaft to another is a skill you will need to develop 😉. If you don’t, you will always be choosing drafts that fit the configuration of your loom instead of you controlling what you want to weave on your loom. Extra heddles are a necessary investment in your weaving world - especially with new looms. Well loved and used looms will almost always have had extra heddles added. You can find heddles for your Jane here - https://janestaffordtextiles.com/product/texsolv-heddles-jane-loom/

In the meantime, you certainly can use shafts 5 and 6 - but I would spread them out throughout your warp to maintain even tension.

If you have been threading from one side to the other - easy peasy. Order some more heddles - you will likely need them for most of the cloth you weave in your weaving life. If you started threading from the right to the left, you can just divide your new heddles up into 4 bunches and slip them on to the left side of each shaft. I haven't woven on an Ashford but I'm sure you will be fine.

I'm currently weaving on a 8 shaft Ashford tableloom, but the pattern is 5 shaft. when I was out of heddles (bc of misscounting hmmm hmmm ) I used the 3 leftover shafts for the 3 shafts with to little heddles. I was lucky that I only needed 3 more shafts thou ( :-) ) It just made me have to remember when lifting shaft 3 I also had to lift shaft 6 and so on. So I lerned to make sure I am counting the heddles next time....
Sorry for my bad english :-)

That is such a great idea Marit! Thanks for the reminder about this!

I agree Kathleen, a real pain to realise that you have not enough or miscounted or mis-threaded (especially so on the 16 shaft Ashford table loom).
So necessity being the mother of invention, and having become sick to death of tying on extra heddles when the going got tough, I have found that you can devise replacement heddles for when the shafts can't be removed by using texsolve heddles and attaching them to the top and bottom metal rungs of the harness/shaft with all sorts of nifty clip-on devices that I have utilised for the job. Anything from knitting markers to clip-on earring loops have been sequestered for this diabolical and devilish process. It is now easy peasy. Whew!