The next yarn in my Tour de Fleece 2024 “Finished WIPs” parade did not suffer any plying blocks. Instead, it offers a cautionary tale about planning and executing your spinning.

I had almost a full braid of Autumn Gems Targhee from Fossil Fibers left over from my Spintentional Spinalong last year. Like that project, I had a knitted item in mind when I started spinning. Yes, I know—having a plan for my finished yarn is rare.

Only this time, my best laid spinning plans went awry.

I wanted to knit fingerless mitts to match my finished cowl. Originally, I meant to make two gradient two-ply yarns, one for each hand, to demonstrate how the colors progressed differently compared to the chain ply used in the cowl. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to spin, I had completely forgotten that idea. Instead of splitting the leftover braid into fourths—two plies for two singles for two matching gradient yarns—I only split it in two.

I meticulously split the braid into halves of 46.2 grams (1.6 ounces), and picked a pair of matching Spanish Peacock bead spindles for the job. I decided to cram all the fiber onto just the two spindles, to see if my hands (and the spindles) could take it.

I finally realized my prep mistake halfway into the first singles. I was left with two options. One: proceed with a two ply, and the mitts would not match, as each would be from a different section of the gradient. Or two: chain ply each singles, and lose the ability to compare the two-ply gradient against the chain-ply gradient.

I settled for the second option, and continued spinning.

I finished spinning in about 24 days. I say “about” because I failed to note both the dates I started and completed the spin. Here is a photo (OK, another screenshot from an Instagram reel) of the two spindles bulging with singles.

Keeping all of each singles on one spindle made it even easier to create the chain plying balls, since there were zero joins to manage. My hands protested mightily by the end though, so cops with more than one ounce of fiber will still be rare.

Once the plying balls were complete, I used my Starling to add twist to the chained singles.

I finished the yarns with my usual soaking, snapping, and drying routine. Then I reskeined the yarns, a new-to-me process that I only occasionally bother to do. I’ve learned it’s easier for me to count yardage on my tabletop skein winder than on a niddy noddy. Plus, the yarn can shrink during the finishing process, so it helps to double check yardage by reskeining. (More on about yarn finishing in a future post.)

And this—at the tail end of my yarn-making adventure—is where I discovered my second mistake. One skein measured 138 yards, and the other 166 yards. Since they weighed the exact same, one yarn had to be thicker than the other. Indeed, one yarn is about 12 wraps per inch (WPI) while the other is 16.

In fact, at no point had I checked what weight I was spinning, even though I always have a spinner control card in easy reach. I didn’t even check what weight I needed for fingerless mitts, because I hadn’t picked a pattern before I started spinning.

Now what? Do I stick with the plan and just have one mitt longer than the other? Just kidding, of course I would end the mitts at the same length. But if one yarn is thicker, the two mitts would fit differently. Can I change my gauge while knitting somehow—larger needles for one mitt, perhaps—to compensate for the different yarn thickness? Or do I scrap the mitt idea and find a different project for two small skeins of gradient yarn?

Summary:

Epilogue: this tale of woe has a happy ending. Fossil Fibers recently hosted a Discord-member-only exclusive sale of fan favorite colorways brought back by popular vote. I am supposed to be on a budget—no buying fiber, shopping from my stash only—so I tried my best to ignore it. When writing this post, I just happened to glance at the listing, and by that time only a few braids remained. But one was Autumn Gems on Targhee! I was clearly meant to try this spin again, with the correct preparation for the two-ply gradient yarns I wanted to spin in the first place. Making sure to check gauge the entire spin, of course.

If you haven’t already read them, here are links to my other posts for Tour de Fleece 2024:

• Harlequin
• Pavlopetri
• Fiber Prep Spinalong
• Tour de Fleece 2013