Let’s talk about yarn: Yardage

tut yarn talk main

Yardage is the number of yards you get in the skein or ball. It is the most useful metric we have when we look at substituting yarns. So if you had a blanket pattern that called for 7 x 50g balls of  merino wool but you wanted to use a  cotton instead just buying 7 balls wouldn’t be the right thing to do because cotton is much heavier than wool and you may not have enough to finish the project. To work out how many balls you needed you would calculate the total yardage thus:

(Balls needed x yardage of specified yarn)/yardage of chosen yarn = balls needed

be sure to round it up not down.

So taking the example above it might look like this:

(7×125)/85=10.29 so you would need 11 balls.

When designing or working without a pattern being able to calculate your estimated yardage is essential for buying the right amount of yarn. After being caught out a few times despite careful calculations I am wondering if that is art rather than a science though!


  1. says

    The art is arcane. Wool stretches whereas cotton doesn’t, so cotton won’t go as far even with the same yardage. And a lot of people (not you of course!) might measure stitch gauge but not row gauge, so will be using a different amount of yarn for each row compared to that expected. Always best to get an extra ball, just in case.

    • notsogranny says

      All good points! No wonder its such a minefield! An extra ball is an excellent idea.