Rigid Heddle Loom Adventures

 The rigid heddle loom experience is quite interesting.  It's slow weaving.  The loom design allows only short warps and you have to manually lift or lower the reed to create the shed.    I've found it to be quite relaxing because there is absolutely no way to rush the process.   

It's also been interesting to read rigid heddle forums to see what others are doing.   Because of the price and easy availability, rigid heddle looms are being purchased by people with no weaving experience, no lessons and no rules.   This means that they weave for the sake of weaving.   While there are some projects that make me cringe a bit because of my own notions about things like sett, yarn content and finishing, I find that there are even more that impress me because people just go for it.   All of a sudden, sleezy fabric becomes very drapey.  Stretchy acrylic yarn which would be difficult to weave with on a floor loom, is easily manageable on the rigid heddle loom.  So this whole experience has been fun, eye opening and very experimental.  Sometimes I still cringe, but people are enjoying the process of weaving.  They are making things they love.  They are playing, which is something that I've found more than a couple of weavers and spinners forget in their fibre journey.  This is what I think we need more of: playing not cringing.

This is my second project on the rigid heddle.  It has been slow weaving because it's set up in the mud room and with the stupidly cold weather, the room is cool too.  So I weave until my hands get cold, or while waiting for the water to boil for tea or dinner preparations.   The weaving eventually gets done.  This is an acrylic yarn, Lion Brand Mandala, which is in a lovely wide gradient colourway.  This one is called Centaur.   It was easy to weave and only took me a few inches to adjust to the stretch.   It is very soft though and has a lovely drape to it, without being sett too loosely :)  The colours are nice too. There is enough colour for interest, but not overwhelming.

1917 Currant Tea Ring

 

Currant Tea Ring 

Recipe is from the 1st edition of the Purity Cookbook.   A much later edition of this cook book was one which taught me to make pie crust, along with the Betty Crocker Cook book - the only two cookbooks that I could find in our house.   

The Purity Cookbook was published by the Western Canada Flour Mills.   The recipes in this book are shifting towards modern recipe instructions, with more details.  However they still presume that the baker, or chef has some knowledge of cookery and don't add oven temperatures or times of modern recipes.   

This is an enriched bread, filled with sugar, currants and cinnamon, rolled up like a jelly roll and snipped almost through to make a pretty presentation.  It was quite delicious.  It was a bit fussy to make but still worth the effort.   Use parchment on your baking tray to keep the sugar from solidifying on the tray as it drips out while baking.  Icing is icing sugar, water and vanilla.   I'd use less next time.  For a less fancy presentation, just slice it up and set them in a pan to make cinnamon rolls.   This presentation however was well received.  

The bread has a fine crumb, nice texture, slices beautifully and has a really nice, taste.  I used about half the sugar, so it wasn't overly sweet.