So I haven’t spun a whole lot on the new wheel yet, but I thought I would record my initial impressions; and maybe it’d be fun to come back later and see what I thought later down the line.

Treadling:

Both the rose and matchless have smooth treadling. The matchless seems to keep it’s momentum going longer though. The rose has you treadling more from the ankle, where the matchless I think I’m using more of my whole leg to do the work. The rose I have to work to keep the wheel going. Also if I tend to push with one foot more than the other I notice the flyer slow down a bit on the slow foot with the rose. I’m sure this will get somewhat better with time and practice. Winner: matchless only because I’m more familiar with it :)

Orifice height

They are both about the same. The rose can be shifted left to right and really adjusted and tweaked. The schact is stationary. Winner: Rose, although only by a hair, because it’s never bothered me on the Schacht.

Flyer/Bobbin types
The schacht has one type. A round orifice. You can’t change the size of it , or type. The Rose has a delta orifice. I’m totally not used to spinning with this one yet. you have to keep your yarn centered in it, and that takes a bit of work. The Rose comes with a fine fiber flyer, which is a more traditional round hole. That’s cool, but it’s a pain to thread your yarn through it without a hook. You can also get a plying flyer, and a novelty yarn flyer (called a wild flyer) and a high speed lace bobbin flyer setup. Both have Woolee winders for them; the one for the rose is on it’s way to me soon I think. Rose bobbins are huge compared to schacht. You can get even bigger ones.

Winner: Rose for the versatility and endless possibilities

Ratios

No winner. They both can go up to approx 19:1 with standard whorls which is pretty damned fast.

Looks

This one is totally subjective. The matchless is not a small wheel. Neither is the Rose. The Rose looks smaller because there is less material overall. I love the look of the wood grain on the rose, but I do not like how the drive wheel looks with the MDF grooves cut in it. Maybe it’s something I’ll learn to love. The engraved rose on the Rose is very pretty, and the overall styling is very nice. The Schacht just seems more polished because of the drive wheel. This one is a toss up. No clear winner.

Portability

Neither wheel is a travel wheel; but I take my Schacht with me to spinning group twice a month (sometimes more) so I do travel with it. The rose is lighter, has a handle. The schacht is really awkward to carry. I even bought those wheels that go on it, but it was really lame and I hate having to put them on/off because I have to move my tension knob on the top to do it really the right way and I hate having to reset everything. I just carry it with the strap. I’m anticipating the Rose to be slightly easier to carry; but time will tell. Winner (by a hair): Rose.

Noise level

One of the reasons I wanted to get and try another wheel was to get one that is quieter than the schacht. So far, the rose is not quieter. It has a gentle hissing that the bobbin makes when spinning on it. I’ve read that this will go away after a while; time will tell. The schacht is currently squeaky and clacky. I’m hoping to take care of the squeak, and clacking to get it back to it’s super quiet self. No winner; both have their issues right now.

Accessories, Maintenance and misc

Both wheels come with a lazy kate. Schacht has a better one because it’s tensioned. I can make the Rose one tensioned; but have to do a bit of work. The Schacht one is also easier to use. Schacht came with a orafice hook and oil bottle. The rose doesn’t need hardly any oil according to the manual. The Schacht drinks oil for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Rose is supposed to be a lot less maintenance. Schacht recommends changing your drive band ever 8 hours. Ha! Hard to declare a winner on this one. I’ll call it a tie.

Conclusion? 

I didn’t add up the winners/losers in the comparisons; right now if I was given the choice to spin on only one, I would probably choose the Schacht since I’m more familiar with it and can make it do what I want it to without thinking about it. I’m going to spend some time to get acquainted with the Rose though; because I can tell she’ll be a great wheel too.  It’s hard for a new wheel to come along and compete with my very first wheel, when I started out with such a great wheel to begin with.

I managed to get a copy of the new book by Clara Parkes The Knitter’s Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn. I was pleasantly surprised by the content inside. It feels more like a textbook about my favorite subject than a fluffy pattern book. There are a lot of terms used that spinners will recognize, but I don’t think you’ll need to be a spinner to get the most out of this book. Terms are well explained, there are a TON of color pictures. Many yarns discussed are currently available yarns, but the knowledge you gain from it will apply to any yarn you’d be able to find in the future too.

There are patterns in the book, which is about 2/3rds of the pages in the book, but the other 1/3 is so chock full of really great information about how yarn is made it’s not just a pattern book. The patterns are organized by the number of plies used to create the yarn - and this is unique to any book I’ve seen before. It has a good variety of patterns from simple to intermediate to some lacy things. It’s got some cute sweaters, some others that I wouldn’t make and also some great accessories that are on my to-knit one day list.

It really makes you sit back and think about the yarn you’re using and the project you’re using it for.

I’m glad to have added this one to my library, and I highly recommend to anyone looking for details about how yarn is made and what it might mean to your finished project.