Yesterday I decided to wind the skeins of Lisa Souza sock yarn in my stash into cakes. I only got through two. I have an old metal skein holder that I love, but for the first time it turned out to be too small for a skein.

I struggled through the first skein, then decided I’d have to do the second by hand. Oh boy. I’d forgotten how long and how awkward that could be. The yarn kept sticking to itself and getting tangled. Eventually I stretched the skein between pegs on the artist’s easel I made for myself several years ago.

Then I decided I’d rewind the ball into a cake on the ball winder. Unfortunately it managed to fall off the guide, and I had to rewind it, stopping several times when it got tangled. I swear the whole process took an hour. I don’t have a lot of spare hours at the moment, so the rest of the skeins were returned to the stash.

This wasn’t the only oddness about the yarn. It seemed thin to me. Now, you’d think after working with the thin yarn for the Very Boring Navy Socks that all yarn would seem thick to me. This wasn’t as thin as the navy yarn, but it was definitely thinner than the last batch of Lisa Souza sock yarn I’d bought.

When I was done winding I did a comparison:

On the left is the ‘wild things’ yarn. Lovely squishy thick sock yarn. On the right is the ‘poiple’ from the more recent batch. Definitely thinner. Now, when I bought the second batch I checked the labels from the old batch to ensure I was getting the same yarn.

Yep, exactly the same, right down to the gauge.

It’s been months now since I ordered the yarn, and I don’t think this is worth taking up with the dyer. The yarn isn’t ridiculously thin and the colours are wonderful. It’s been a few years since I ordered the original batches of yarn so maybe the base yarn has changed. The site does have a different gauge under the specs.

Just goes to show, a product can change. It’s a bit annoying to have discovered this after buying five skeins of it! But it is reinforcing my determination to buy locally. Much easier to return things if necessary. Much easier to buy in person or, if mail ordering, there’s not such an incentive to buy a lot of something to make the shipping worthwhile.