How Much Yarn Is Enough? Part 1: Weigh Your Yarn Before You Cast On

Imagine yourself holding several skeins of yarn and wondering if you have enough to knit a sweater. Or perhaps reaching into a bag of lovely fiber that you’d like to spin and knit and wondering how much yarn it takes to make a scarf.

One way to proceed is just to start knitting and hope for the best. Sometimes things turn out fine. Other times you end up with quite a lot of yarn left over, but you can always save it for the future. Now and then, you run out of yarn before you finish the project and have to do some creative problem-solving.

But perhaps you’d like to know in advance that your yarn supply is adequate for the project you have in mind. You don’t have to wait until you’re done knitting. Before you start, you can make rough estimates of yarn requirements by weight. Or you can make more specific estimates by measuring a sample swatch. Measuring and figuring does take a little more thought and time at the beginning of a project, but you’re rewarded by the confidence you feel as you begin to knit.

This two-part series walks you through ways to know in advance if you have enough yarn on hand for the project you have in mind. In this first part, you'll learn how to make rough estimates of yarn requirements by weight and how to make more specific estimates by measuring a sample swatch. In part two, you'll learn another method: estimating yarn requirements by area.

Using Weight to Make Rough Estimates

The quickest way to estimate yarn requirements for a project is by weight. Find something similar to the article you want to make (a sweater, a scarf, mittens, an afghan, or whatever) and weigh it. (Or find one described in a magazine or book and look for information on how much it weighs.) That weight is a rough estimate of how much yarn you will need. For example, if you want to knit a size 12 long-sleeve cardigan sweater,