Ricotta 2

Making Ricotta again! 

This time, I'm doing things a little differently. I made a half batch, that's a half gallon of whole milk and two cups of buttermilk. I'm checking how long it takes to get from fridge temperature to the required 180 degree mark.

At 10 minutes in, the milk was at 100 degrees, according to the candy thermometer.

At 17 minutes, it is looking  "cottage cheesy" and resembles the ceiling texture in most of my house. The temperature was 150.

It has now reached 180, and that is at about 20 minutes. Now to ladle it out and let it drip for an hour.

It's easier working with a half batch.

Plans and spacer chains and heddles! Oh, my!

It occurs to me that you might be interested in my warp weighted loom plan. I need to give credit where it is due. The plans I have used are mainly from the old Early Period Magazine. It was an SCA publication, I think. It has not been published in quite some time, but here is the link to the archives: 

http://www.housebarra.com/EP/ 

The articles are in Issues 2 and 3, Making a Warp Weighted Loom and Warping Your Loom, respectively. These plans have been THE most helpful to me, mainly because there are drawings to look at. If you want to use the plans from these two issues, send the people who run the website an e-mail and ask for permission. I'm sure they will give it--when I asked, they were very nice--but it's better to ask first.

When I began researching this topic, there wasn't a lot of information out there. There is more now, including some particularly good videos on YouTube by a young man who was doing a college project. I have not found any plans that are the equal of the ones from Early Period Magazine, which was the first set I came across. The videos give additional visual impact, but merely add to the information already presented. What I'm doing here is relating my experiences with warp weighted looms.

Some plans I came across call for "sizing" the warp. Sizing means putting a mixture of glue and water (or starch) on the warp threads so they will be stiff and strong while you are weaving them. You have to wash it out of the project when you're done. I don't think this is a necessary step for the time period I'm working in (1st century BC-AD). I also fear that if I tried to do this, it would result in a huge sticky mess. It also assumes that you are using crochet cotton for the warp. I don't really want to think about trying it on wool.

The sizing recipe calls for 4 to 5 pints of water per one pint of Elmer's school glue. You mix it up and toss the skeins of warp into it, squeeze out the excess and hang it up to dry.

If you don't have a wide-ranging primitive or small loom background, such as a familiarity with backstrap, rigid heddle, tapestry or inkle looms you may have problems with some aspects of the Warp Weighted loom. When I started this, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or getting into. I had woven two projects on a table loom in high school some 25 years ago (30 now!). You may be far more ahead on this than I was.

As I mentioned before in the post of September 29, 2012, entitled Making String Heddles for the Warp Weighted Loom, I have trouble making the continuous heddles. Another blogger here on blogspot used a netting shuttle to make her continuous heddles, but she has experience with backstrap looms. (I, on the other hand, had to look up what in tarnation a netting shuttle was!) On my current project, I've decided to make loops. The author of the Early Period articles covers string heddles in much more detail than anyone else, including diagrams of how to make a continuous heddle and spacer chain. If you have trouble interpreting a static image diagram, such as stitch illustrations for crochet or knitting, you will have difficulty interpreting these, also.

My loop string heddles.

I do my loom set up before Journey to Bethlehem opens. Weeks before, in theory, but sometimes life happens. I don't do it in costume and I don't use period correct tools; I use scissors, crochet hooks and a tape measure. During production, if anyone is interested, they can weave a couple of picks.

Another thing to consider is spacing the warp with a chain (I crochet mine, that's the easy part) and your eyesight, if you are using weaving threads. You don't have to crochet it, you can make the chain using just your fingers (that's in the House Barra archive, too). Crochet is not period (1800's I think). Unless you are doing the set up as part of the demonstration and need period accuracy (and there are people around who will KNOW the difference and will take points off or something) or you don't know how to crochet, I wouldn't worry about the anachronism.

This is a spacer chain on a previous project from 2006.

Either use the same type of thread you are using for the warp, or at least the same or smaller weight or ends/wraps per inch for the spacer chain. My current project uses a wool yarn warp and weft. If I were to use the same yarn, then it would stick together. I'm going to use a blue cotton/bamboo size 3 or 5 crochet thread for the spacer chain and heddles. This is so I can see and feel the difference the chains and heddles from the project in the dark, since our production times are always at night.

If you are crocheting the spacers, use the crochet hook recommended for the gauge of the thread. For example:size 5 to 7 steel crochet hook for a size 10 bedspread cotton. The larger the number on a steel hook, the smaller it is, whereas it's the opposite for the aluminum and plastic ones. Why does it depend on the gauge of the thread? Because I used a plastic M or N size hook, once, when I had a warp that (if crocheting) normally took a size D or C hook. The spacer made the warp too wide for the weaving width and I had to re-do it.

This post is a bit disjointed and skips about. I'm sorry for that. I may come back at a later date and redo all of  my posts on the Warp Weighted Loom, but not right now. Thanks for reading!

Warp Weighted Loom Update

So last night was Tuesday and weaving class. Someone at class mentioned that I should take pictures to document what I was doing. So I will do that next time I'm at class and post them here.

Last week, I had counted the warp threads and slip knotted them by groups of 10. The final count was 440! This week during class, I spent the time separating the front and back threads. I used a weaving sword or pickup stick (whatever) and lease sticks.

Here are a few terms for you if you are new to weaving (I can feel eyes glazing over):
A weaving sword or pickup stick is a long, thin, flat, slat of wood that is pointed at one or both ends. Its purpose is to slip in between the threads so you can lift or pick up all of the warp threads at once in order to weave.

A lease stick is also a long, thin, flat slat of wood, with the ends rounded, not pointy. It is slightly thicker than the sword. Lease sticks are usually included when you buy a modern floor loom. A lease stick should be slightly longer than your warp. If you have a place that sells lumber, like one of the warehouse hardware stores, they would be cheap and easy to make. Lease sticks must be sanded smooth so the warp won't catch and snag or fray.The purpose of lease sticks is to keep the cross of the threads.

The cross (weaving, not Christianity) is where the front and back threads cross each other so you can pull the back threads forward in order to weave.

In order to make things a little easier, I am going to refer to the group of warp threads in front as the A threads. The warp threads in back will be the B threads. With a warp weighted loom, the front and back threads are divided by the bottom brace, and weights are hung on the warps instead of wrapping the warp between two beams as in more modern looms.

Now that we have definitions of terms, we can proceed. I picked up every other thread in a group of 10, and slipped it on top of the sword, so that I had 5 in front and 5 in back. When I was done, I stuck a lease stick in the shed.

Next, I took the back threads and brought them forward through the front ones, and slipped the sword in between them. I did not finish this part by the end of class. I only have a few more bundles of 10 to do, though, so I am happy with my progress. Besides, next time, I will bring my camera so I can take pictures!

The bottom stick is a lease stick and the top pointy one is a weaving sword.
The threads in front of the bottom stick are the A threads..

Taking a group of threads and dividing them.

A pair of threads: A and B.
A is on the right.

I slip the A thread to the front of the lease stick.
Note that both threads are to the front of the weaving sword.

Now the A thread has been slipped behind the sword.
The B thread has been slipped behind the lease stick and to the front of the sword.

Note: It is much easier to do one set of threads (A or B) at a time. The reason I'm doing them at the same time is because I messed up. I skipped several when I was slipping them from the sword to the lease stick.

The blue thread on the counter is a loop heddle.

I still have to make more heddles. I have 10, so far, so that's 430 more to go! Ha. I also have to make more weights.