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.]

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns!

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil.

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn.

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point.

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up.

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.

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