Yarn calculator
How much yarn do I need?
Pick what you are making and tell us about your yarn. The estimate updates as you type, and it gets narrower the more you can tell us — a weighed swatch is exact.
What are you making?
Who is it for?
Size
Fit
How much roomier than the body. Negative for hats and socks, which stretch to fit.
Drawn to scale in cm. Circumferences show as half — that is one flat layer, the way a pattern schematic does it.
The grey figure is a body of this size, for scale. The gap around it is your ease.
Your yarn
From the ball band or cone label.
Your gauge matters more than any other input. Without it we assume the gauge this thickness is usually knitted at, and the estimate gets much rougher.
Estimate
Add the yarn’s length per 100 g — it’s printed on the band or the cone label.
Your saved calculations
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Questions knitters ask
- How accurate is this?
- It depends entirely on what you tell us. Weigh a swatch and the figure is within a few percent, because we are measuring your fabric rather than guessing at it. Give us your gauge and it is close. Give us neither and we assume the gauge your yarn is usually knitted at, which can be out by a third. The range shown under the result is the honest width of the estimate, and it narrows as you add detail.
- Why do you ask for rows as well as stitches?
- Stitches tell us how wide a stitch is; rows tell us how tall. Yarn consumption depends on both, so a fabric knitted loosely in one direction and tightly in the other is not the same as one knitted evenly. Most patterns quote both. If you only know stitches we estimate rows at about 1.4 times, which is normal for stockinette.
- Can I hold several ends together?
- Yes, and you should tell us — it is the single biggest thing most calculators get wrong. Our yarn comes on cones and is often worked two, four or six ends together. Holding four ends of a fine yarn makes a fabric four times heavier for the same area, so the strand count changes the answer completely.
- How much extra should I buy?
- The safety margin defaults to 12% and we would not go below 10%. It covers your swatch, your seams and the real risk that a second dye lot will not match the first. Our stock is production surplus, so a lot genuinely may not repeat — running out near the end of a sleeve is far more expensive than a little left over.
