Yarn Yardage Calculator
Work out how much yarn a project takes and how many skeins to buy, using your own swatch and the details on your yarn label.
1. Your swatch
2. Resize a pattern
3. Measurement to stitches
Your yarn (from the label)
Your swatch
Pieces of the project
Yarn used by a counted number of stitches
Stitches in the project
What the pattern asks for
How to use the yarn calculator
First enter Your yarn (from the label): the length per skein and the grams per skein. Then choose one of three ways to estimate.
Weigh a swatch: knit or crochet a swatch in the stitch you will use, measure its width and height, and weigh it on a scale that shows grams. Enter up to four pieces of the project (front, back, sleeves...) with their width, length and how many of each. The calculator scales the swatch weight to the total area and converts grams to yards or meters with your label.
Yarn per stitch: measure a length of yarn, work it up, and count the stitches it made. Enter the stitches per row, the rows and the pieces, and the calculator multiplies it out.
Swap the pattern yarn: enter the skeins the pattern asks for and the length of one of those skeins. You get the total length and the skeins of your yarn that cover it.
For the swatch and per stitch methods you can add a percentage for seams, swatching and weaving in ends; it starts at 0. Your gauge, from the knitting gauge calculator, tells you the stitches per row for a width you want.
Why your own swatch beats a table
How much yarn a project uses depends on the fiber, the thickness of that particular yarn, your needle or hook, the stitch pattern and your tension. That is why this yarn yardage calculator holds no yardage tables: every number comes from your swatch and your label, so the estimate is about your knitting, not an average.
A bigger swatch gives a better estimate, because a small error on a small swatch is multiplied across the whole project. Cables and textured stitches use more yarn for the same area than plain stockinette, so swatch in the stitch you will actually use. The skein count is always rounded up to whole skeins; buy them from one dye lot where you can.
Print sheet prints your figures and result to take to the shop, and Share link sends them to another device.
Keyboard shortcuts
- U or Ctrl+Z (outside a box): undo the last change
- R: clear all boxes (the message lets you undo it)
- C: copy the result
- P: print the result as a sheet
- Esc: leave the box you are typing in, so the letter keys work
- F: full screen, M: sound on or off
Inside a box, Tab moves to the next one and your browser's own undo works as usual.
Questions
How do I convert yards to meters?
One yard is exactly 0.9144 meters. The yarn calculator shows its result in both, whichever unit you type the label in.
My label gives meters and the pattern gives yards. Is that a problem?
Choose the unit that matches what you type. In Swap the pattern yarn both skein lengths use the same unit, so convert one of them first if needed (multiply yards by 0.9144 to get meters).
Can I use it for crochet?
Yes. All three methods work the same for crochet: swatch, weigh and measure, or count the stitches a length of yarn makes.
Is my data saved?
The numbers stay in your browser so they are there when you come back. Nothing is sent to a server.
More in Knitting and crochet
Put this yarn yardage calculator on your website
Free for classrooms, clubs, blogs and shops: paste this code into any page. It works the same inside your site, and counts stay in each visitor's own browser. For a dark version, add ?theme=dark after /yarn-calculator/ in the code.