How Much Yarn Do I Need for a Scarf, Blanket or Jumper?
The most common question in any yarn shop, and the one with the least satisfying answer: it depends. But it depends on things you already know — what you're making, how big, and what weight of yarn — so here are the figures.
Yardage at a glance (DK weight)
- Baby hat — 100 to 150 yards
- Adult hat — 150 to 250 yards
- Pair of mittens — 150 to 200 yards
- Pair of socks — 350 to 450 yards
- Adult scarf — 400 to 600 yards
- Shawl — 600 to 800 yards
- Baby blanket — 700 to 900 yards
- Child's jumper — 900 to 1,400 yards
- Adult jumper — 1,000 to 1,800 yards
- Throw blanket — 1,800 to 2,200 yards
- Double bed blanket — 3,000 yards and up
Get the figure for your yarn
Our yardage and substitution calculator adjusts these figures for your yarn weight, tells you how many balls to buy, and will weigh up whether the stash you already have is enough.
Thicker yarn, fewer yards
A chunky scarf and a fingering-weight scarf cover the same neck, but chunky yarn is thicker, so fewer yards fill the same space — though each yard weighs more. As a rough guide, compared with DK: chunky needs about half the yardage, worsted about 85%, sport about 120%, and fingering roughly 140%.
This is why a chunky blanket knits up so satisfyingly fast, and why a fingering-weight shawl seems to take forever despite using less actual wool.
Add extra for these
- Cables and heavy texture — 20 to 30% more. Cables pull the fabric in, and all that pulled-in width is yarn.
- Colourwork — the floats carried across the back add up over a whole garment.
- Larger sizes — patterns often quote yardage for the smallest size only.
- Fringe, tassels and pompoms — always more than anyone expects.
- Long or generous versions — an extra six inches on a scarf is another 100 yards.
Buy one spare ball, and buy it now. Yarn is dyed in batches, and the same shade from a later batch can be visibly different in daylight. Buying an extra ball at the start costs a few pounds; hunting for a matching dye lot three months later can cost you the project.
Working out what you already have
Kitchen scales turn a mystery ball into a number. If a yarn gives 220 yards per 100 grams, then 45 grams of it holds about 99 yards. Weigh everything in the relevant colour, add it up, and you'll know whether that stash blanket is realistic before you start rather than at square forty.
If the ball band is long gone, our yarn identifier will tell you the weight, and typical yards per 100 grams for each weight are on the same page.
A note on scarves specifically
Scarf yardage varies more than any other project because the dimensions are entirely up to you. A narrow 6 inch scarf at 60 inches long is a very different quantity from an 10 inch wrap at 72 inches. Decide the finished size first, then multiply: a DK scarf takes roughly 1.1 yards of yarn per square inch of fabric.