Rows Red

“There once was a girl named Emma who was both fair and elegant. She lived in a very old little house full of wool, and had a wonderful mistress, but for some reason they just didn’t connect. As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, both Emma and her mistress felt a growing sense of drift. All the other ladies of the house were put to work, but Emma… not so much. This continued until one day her mistress came to realize that while she loved Emma very much, Emma needed to go to a home where she could have that sense of fulfillment she’d been lacking. It was one of those, “if you love them, you let them go” moments for both Emma and the mistress. And so, one Friday, in the dark of night, she found herself wedged into the back seat of a strange car, and behind the steering wheel she saw her new mistress, Mistress Rows.”

Due to Jess’s extraordinary generosity, the lovely Emma has come to live at Tiny House, at least for now. As it often happens between friends, one person says they’re looking to make a change and the other says maybe they could help with that. As we talked details I was very honest. Our finances are tight, and my personal money has tightened accordingly. Even cutting out my one regular luxury, Tuesday night sushi before Knit Night, it’ll be a long while before I can pay this off. Jess is of the mind that she’d rather Emma go to a home where she knows for sure she’ll be well cared for, and where she can come visit her from time to time. Tiny House can provide that!

Emma, spinning Sugar Plum Fairy BFL from Into the Whirled.

Everyone who knows me as a fiber person knows, I’m not a wheel collector. We don’t have that kind of money, and I’m really cautious about big purchases. I buy the best tool I can afford, one that will allow me the most options, and that I’m least likely to grow out of in the near future. Still, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was always my plan, if possible, to have two wheels once we bought the house, and I wanted the new one to be a production wheel. In the apartment I wouldn’t have dreamed of adding a new wheel, we had nowhere practical to put it. Here in Tiny House I have the wool room should I need to put the wheel away. Circe could stay in the bag and come to knitting with me on Tuesdays, which is all the action she sees half the time anyway. If I don’t remember to set her back up the next day I often forget and knit instead. With a wheel that’s always ready, I expect that I’ll spin more. Considering the size of my fiber stash, this is a very good thing!

Emma is a Kromski Symphony, a replica production style wheel in the Saxony (storybook) wheel. This means she’s very different from my Lendrum castle (upright) wheel, and spinning on her is another animal entirely. The double drive setup and relatively large (24″) wheel make for powerful, lightning fast spinning. This is not a wheel that I’d recommend for a first time spinner, at least not set up for lace weight and double drive as she is right now. Without a deft hand the thread-fine yarn would be easily pulled from your fingers. Her technical features take a little getting used to… I haven’t spun on a Saxony since 2004 when I owned Phaedre, my creaky antique Ashford Traditional, and never on a double drive.

Graceful curves everywhere you look.

Visually, Emma is a stunner. She has all the finials and turnings you could want in a wheel, the word that comes first to mind is elegant. Every time I look at Emma I see some detail or feature to admire. Photographing her was a lot of fun, even if it was 80F in the house. Taking photos at non-traditional angles just illustrates how lovely her design is. Those folks at Kromski know exactly what they’re doing. Each piece fits perfectly, and is perfectly gorgeous. If I had bought a Symphony new for myself, which I have dreamed of for a while, the only thing I’d do different is buy one in the cherry color. Still, blonde is beautiful too, and what I’m used to with Circe.

Double drive is new to me.

The technical differences between Circe and Emma are obviously like night and day, but even compared to Phaedre there are some glaring standouts. Emma is bobbin led and has interchangeable whorls that screw on for different ratios (speeds). Phaedre had one whorl. If you wanted to spin fine yarn you had to treadle like your life depended on it. Emma spins like a veritable powerhouse, you can feel the power behind her action, and all that for very little effort on the treadles. Circe and I have never had trouble spinning super fine, but the “feel” is different, and hard to explain. Circe is like a very serviceable car that’s comfy and gets you anywhere you want to go. Emma is like a Saab, EVERYTHING is different under the hood. I have no trouble with adjusting and fine-tuning her, right now my only concern is ergonomics. I’m a much bigger woman than Jess, and I’m fighting the feeling like I don’t have enough room between where my feet need to be on the treadles, and where my left knee keeps knocking into the mother-of-all.

No tilt tension here, we have instead the turning of the screw.

I’m very fortunate to have the opportunity to try Emma out, no strings attached and with generous terms. ‘Cause lord knows, I’m not exactly rolling in the dough right now. Every time I look at her I smile! I think we’ll get along just fine, and I look forward to trying the slower whorl for some thicker fingering and sport weight spinning. If she and I can agree on all my favorite types of spinning, I do believe she’ll have a home for many years to come here at Tiny House. Thank you, Jess, you can come visit any time you want.

Tags: Awesomeness, Friends & Fun, Spinning