Limiting mains current
The simplest thing to do for this sort of testing is to put an ordinary incandescent light bulb in series with your transformer primary as a "ballast" resistor. But for 1A, you'll need a 250W bulb, or maybe four 60W bulbs in parallel.

A better solution is to use a Variac (variable autotransformer) to bring up the voltage on your homemade transformer gradually. Use an ammeter to monitor the current.