How to Estimate Yardage in an Odd Ball of Yarn

If you have a bit of yarn left over from a past project or any ball of yarn that has lost its ball band, it’s natural to wonder exactly how much yarn you have there.

It’s never a good idea to start a knitting project not knowing if you have enough yarn to finish it, but the good news is there are a couple of ways to estimate how much yarn you have.

The more time-consuming way to do it is to measure out a certain quantity of the yarn, say 10 or 25 yards, weigh that and determine your yards per ounce. Then weigh the whole skein and you can get a pretty good guess at the yardage.

If your yarn is in a hank, you can stretch it out, measure the length of the hank itself, count the number of strands and multiply by the length of one strand to determine yardage.

Or you can make a less scientific but still relatively accurate guess based on the average weight of yarn in the yarn weight category you’re dealing with, as outlined in this post from Interweave. If you know that you have light weight yarn (verified with a wraps per inch tool or by wrapping the yarn around a ruler), using the chart on that post you can see that you typically get 1,200 to 1,800 yards a pound in that weight of yarn.

Weigh your skeins and you can figure out a somewhat close range for how much yardage you have. Err on the side of assuming you have less to avoid tragedy.

Have you ever used one of these methods to determine yardage on unknown balls or hanks of yarn? Or do you have another method? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[Photo: Interweave.]

Next Pattern:

The other day I saw a post from Pinterest about trends for summer and it said one of them was “cultivating whimsy.”

Well, I don’t know where Pinterest has been all this time, but we’ve been cultivating whimsy here at Craft Gossip for a long time. I love sharing projects that are a little different, things that make you smile when you see them, and will make you smile when you knit them and wear them or use them.

Such it is with the Tutti Frutti tee knitting pattern from Bea Creative Knits.

This cute little baby tee is worked top down in the round with contiguous shoulder construction to shape the sleeve caps. There are short rows for the neckline and folded hems with picot edging at the hemline, neckline and edges of the sleeves.

All of this would be great on its own, but then there’s the addition of a super cute fruit icon, which is added with duplicate stitch. There are a lot of options, including strawberry, banana, orange, cherries, watermelon, lemon, blueberries, kiwi, peach, dragon fruit, apple and pear, so it’s likely you can add on your favorite fruit.

It is offered in eight sizes, to fit a bust measurement ranging from 28-30 inches (71-76 cm) to 56-58 inches (142-147 cm). The design is meant to be worn with around 6.3 inches/16 cm of negative ease, but you can choose the fit you prefer. There’s also optional bust and waist shaping included in the pattern if you want to make it even curvier.

This is considered an advanced beginner or intermediate project because of all the skills involved, but it’s sure to be a lot of fun even if some of these techniques are new to you.

Grab a copy of the pattern for yourself form Bea Creative Knits on Etsy.

[Photo: Bea Creative Knits]

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