Where's The Yarn?

Where's the yarn?

When I cast on for the sleeves of the cabled cardigan, I started two brand new balls of yarn. Exactly the same. Even the dye lot numbers match! That's how exactly the same the balls were. Now, nearing the end of one ball, the two are not so much exactly the same any more. One ball is clearly more endowed with yardage. So what happened?

The knitting is flying along. Short rows, decreases, increases - you know cabled sleeve shaping. Suddenly the two balls are no longer equal. In fact they are no longer equal by quite a bit. So upset by this situation was I that the measuring tape actually made an appearance. Result - two sleeves the same length. HMM. Most unusual. Could it be that the short rows, the decreases and the increases were not the same from sleeve to sleeve. No way! The whole point of working both sleeves at the same time is to insure uniformity. I have it down to a science. Actual notes and row counting occurs.

Both fronts were worked at the same time in the same manner as the current sleeve knitting. Started each front side with a brand new ball just as I did for the sleeves. But when the fronts worked up - exactly the same - all the yarn was equal from ball to ball.

Where's the sleeve yarn? Is it some accident of ball winding? Is my tension that off from the first sleeve to the second sleeve? Or, is it just a puzzling idiosyncrasy of yarn that keeps us slaves to its mysteries? Yeah. That must be it.

PS - Having a bouquet of roses arrive at the front door sure does make for a happy knitter. And these are not even Valentine Roses.