The Knitting Fiend

La worried about running out of yarn in comments; I realized I needed to write yet another calculator to answer this common knitting problem!

You read a pattern, it recommends you buy 10 balls of Noro Silk Garden, Lorna's Laces or some other usually expensive or unavailable yarn. You want to substitute yarn "X".

Can you do this? Assuming you can, how many balls do you need?

Well, I can give a partial answer. First, here's the part I can't answer: No calculator can tell you whether or not you'll get a good result when you substitute "Brand X" yarn. You will need to make sure the new yarn looks and feels nice at the stitch gauge required for the pattern. But, once you do decide you are going to substitute "Brand X", this calculator can estimate how much yarn you need, provided you look up some data. ¹

To use the calculator, you will need to: a) look at number of yards (or meters) per skein in the recommended yarn, b) read the pattern to determine then number of skeins they recommend then c) look at number of yards per look at number of yards (or meters) per ball for the "Brand X" yarn you want to substitute.

Enter that data in the form, and it will tell you how many skeins of Brand X you need to avoid running out of yarn.

( Some manufacturers,especially those who sell to big box stores, sell balls in a variety of sizes, so be sure to look up the yardage for the correct size skein. The yardage can be found on the ball band; you can probably find yardages by doing a google search for a particular brand of yarn. )

Change values to match your data!

	Recommended Yarn.	Brand X Yarn
Number of balls required:
Enter yardage of a skein (or cone) : (From ball band of yarn, or Yarndex)	meters yards	meters yards

Results:

The pattern calls for yards ( meters) of yarn.) The designer would have rounded up the number of balls required to make sure you don't run out of yarn.

To avoid running out of yarn, you will need skeins (or cones). Once again, you need to round up! (Yes, things have been rounded up twice; once by the designer and once by you. This means you may buy too much yarn; the calculator can't really do anything about that problem.)

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This is posted in knitting calculators.
1. Note: The calculator assumes the pattern designer was using the original yarn single stranded, and you are using the yarn single stranded. That's the "normal" way to use yarn.

Stumble it (and place in Knitting/crochet!)

8 Comments »

1. wow, thank youuuuuuu .

   Comment by Isela — 1/5/2006 @ 2:41 am

2. Fantastic! Thanks Lucia. Looking forward to your fug!

   Comment by La — 1/5/2006 @ 4:23 pm

3. I need to download another browser. I’m on a mac and Yahoo claimed it would let me make a fug with safari 1.3.1, but they LIED!

   Comment by lucia — 1/5/2006 @ 4:38 pm

4. [...] How Many Skeins? [...]

   Pingback by Hankering for Yarn » Confused About How Much Yarn To Buy? — 1/17/2006 @ 3:14 am

5. [...] How Many Skeins? [...]

   Pingback by How Much Yarn Do You Need? ? Knitmodo - Everything for the Discerning Knitter — 4/28/2006 @ 12:25 am

6. Thank you all so very much I needed help in this area very much.

   Comment by Millie — 11/8/2006 @ 5:35 pm

7. Thanks for your calculator. I have the opposite problem … sort-of. I have some very old skeins of yarn that only list their weight and I need to estimate how many yards are on the skeins. I want to make a shawl with them and don’t want to start the project without knowing if I think I have enough. Can you help me?

   Comment by Lauri — 3/30/2008 @ 5:51 pm

8. Hey, Lauri — being a new knitter, I haven’t had that problem yet, but will soon, I’m sure … have you thought of asking the big yarn stores online, like Herrschner’s or Yarn By The Bag -? If they ever carried that yarn, they could probably tell you the yardage, or if you have the fiber content & the weight on the label, you could shop for something similar (the sites list both weight and yardage –)and then plug the info for your skeins into a calculator for an estimate on your shawl project. The other thing you might try is to find something very close to your old mystery yarn but readily available, and get some of that as a cushion; depending on your pattern, you might be able to combine the two yarns in the project and have some of either or both left for your stash. I hope that makes sense, and maybe helps you work it out — good luck!

   Comment by Jamielynne Crissman — 7/3/2008 @ 9:08 am

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