Cricket Rigid-Heddle Loom

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by Schacht Spindle Co. Inc.

The newest loom offering from Schacht, the Cricket is—as the name suggests—as cute as a bug. It's a scaled-down rigid-heddle loom targeted to kids and new weavers.

The rounded corners and sanded-smooth corners give the loom a modern appearance. But more than looks, the contours of the heddle block's up and down positions make weaving on this a breeze. The action to switch sheds is fluid and you can easily fall into a weaving rythym.

At 13x18x6 inches and 3-1/3 pounds, it's a compact little loom that is perfect for traveling and/or child weavers. I had my five-year-old son test-drive the loom. He wove on it easily and appreciated the child-sized scale. His summary comment: "I need to get me one of these."

But, despite being child-friendly, this isn't a toy loom. With a ten-inch weaving width, you can weave a variety of projects—even blankets, if you're willing to piece together panels. Its frame and tensioning gears are strong enough to stand up to even the very tight tension I like to weave with.

To achieve the entry-level price point, Schacht uses plywood for the sides of the frame, but it is high-quality and sanded smooth. The choice of plywood adds strength to the design while keeping the weight of the loom low.

The only issue I ran into with this delightful loom was that it was so light-weight that every once and a while it would lift up during weaving. The fix for this was simple, either back off on the weaving tension or use the enclosed clamps to fix it to the table.

The loom comes with everything you need to get started weaving: two stick shuttles, a warping peg, threading hook, two table clamps, an 8-dent reed, manual, project directions, and even includes two colors of worsted-weight wool yarn to get you started.

An easy pick to put under the tree.