How many skeins of your yarn do you need?
Enter the pattern's yarn and the yarn you want to knit with. You get the skeins to buy, the metres and grams in all, and whether your yarn is about as thick.
The pattern's yarn
as the pattern gives it
The yarn you knit with
9skeins to buy
1,400metres in all
419grams in all
Rounded up from 8.4.
Each circle is a skein of your yarn; the last one shows how much of it you use.
Check your stash in KnitBuddy: choose a yarn you have at home, see whether there is enough, and find stash yarns about as thick as the pattern's.
How to work it out yourself
Example: the pattern asks for 8 skeins of a yarn with 175 m per 50 g. Your yarn has 167 m per 50 g.
- First the pattern's amount in metres: 8 × 175 m = 1,400 m.
- Then in skeins of your yarn: 1,400 ÷ 167 = 8.4 skeins. You can't buy part of a skein, so that is 9 skeins to buy. Rounded up from 8.4.
- In weight: 8.4 × 50 g ≈ 419 g of your yarn.
- Thickness: the pattern's yarn has 175 ÷ 50 = 3.5 m per gram, yours 167 ÷ 50 = 3.34. That is about 5% apart, well within 15%, so the two yarns are similar.
If the pattern gives grams instead of skeins, you need its yarn's metres and grams per skein to get to metres: 400 g ÷ 50 g × 175 m = 1,400 m. And if your yarn is more than 15% thicker or thinner by metres per gram, the calculator says so: “Your yarn is thicker than the pattern's. Knit a swatch and check the tension before you buy.”
Questions
- Why compare metres and not grams?
- Yarns of the same weight can have very different lengths: 50 g can be 100 m of a chunky wool or 200 m of a fine one. You knit with the length, so the calculator turns the pattern's amount into metres first.
- What if my yarn is thicker or thinner?
- Then your stitches will not come out the same size as the pattern's. Knit a swatch and check your tension before you buy; the calculator tells you when your yarn is more than 15 % thicker or thinner by metres per gram.
- Why round up to whole skeins?
- You can't buy part of a skein, and running short near the end is worse than having some left over. Buy all the skeins from the same dye lot, so the colour matches.