What Is Alma's Wheel?

I remember being a very young boy back in the late 60's, visiting my grandmother's farm in Vermont.  Called "Butternut Farms," because of the..wait for it..butternut trees in her backyard, it was 100 acres in the hills of Lyndonville.  It was several hours away from where we lived in New Jersey, so we didn't go there often.  But when we did, it was for several days, and it was a most peaceful time for me.

I remember the wagon rides, the walks in the fields, playing in the old barns, Nanook the Siberian Huskey, the woodchuck that lived in the wood shed attached to the house, and the huge fireplace in the living room.

Also in the living room, I distinctly remember her spinning wheel.  It was a classic looking wheel (one that I later learned is a Saxony style wheel), the color of...well, the color of butternut, and it sat across the room from the fireplace, just to the left the television, in front of the big window that overlooked the yard and the valley below the house.  I never saw my grandmother use the wheel, and I never saw any yarn on it.  No one seems to remember where my grandmother got it, or if it was ever used in the family.  So there it sat.

Fast forward 50 years.  My parents moved the family to upstate New York.  My grandfather died, and my grandmother moved to our little village to be close to my mother.  She went from a big farm house on 100 acres to living in a tiny house on 1/4 acre.  Somehow, the spinning wheel made it from Vermont to her New York home.  I moved to Las Vegas for a time, and while I was there my grandmother, Alma, died.

She wanted to make sure that I got that spinning wheel, and when I finally moved back to New York eight years later, it was waiting for me.  It sat in my house, more as a decoration than anything else, for several years, until I decided it was time to learn to spin.  Here it is, several years later, and I use it almost daily.  I process raw fleece into roving, and then spin it on Alma's wheel.

The wheel was manufactured by Philias Cadorette (or one of his employees) in the early 1900's, in Canada.  It is called a Canadian Production Wheel, or CPW.  CPW wheels are known for their fast production of yarn.  It is actually not the greatest wheel to learn how to spin on, because it can be so fast.  But once you get used to it, it is a lot of fun and very...productive.  I also have a Lendrum wheel, and the CPW spins yarn at least twice as fast as the Lendrum.

An interesting thing about Alma's wheel (and all "true" CPWs) is that there are no threaded adjustments.  Everything is done with friction.  You can see the mother-of-all in this picture.  In order to adjust the tension on the drive wheel, you twist/tap the mother-of-all in the direction you want.  The friction of the iron clamp around the base is what holds in in place.

For me, eventually that friction wore out.  I removed the clamp, and wrapped the base with a piece of heavy duty leather.  Friction is perfect now, and the wheel spins along happily, daily.