How much yarn do you need for a scarf?
Maybe you participated in my free knitting school for beginners.You learned the rib stitch and now want to knit a scarf.Excellent!How much yarn is needed for a scarf?
In this guide, I will show you how to find out how much yarn is needed for a scarf, no matter if you are knitting a loop or a baby.
I am pretty sure you are looking for an easy answer.Buy 3 skeins.You need 500 yards.I have to let you down.There are no easy answers.Most people don't know what they're talking about when they say how many yards of yarn you need for a scarf.It depends on the scarf you want to knit.Some are longer, some shorter and some have intricate yarn eating patterns.
For beginners, my scarf pattern is 160 yards.Some people think the perfect scarf is closer to a blanket, while others think of a lacey summer scarf.The first may need 1000 yards and the other just 300.A project in brioche stitches may need more yarn than one in garter stitch.That doesn't mean you should be discouraged.Five easy ways to find out how much yarn you need for a scarf.
Make sure to check out my guide on the 20 most important things every knitter needs and my very handy guide with 7 tips to stop your scarf from curling at the edges.
You can find out how much yarn you need by weighing an existing scarf.We have a few of those in our closets and a kitchen scale.Here is what you need to do.
Pick a scarf that is similar in size, yarn weight, and material to the one you want to knit.Your scale can tell you the weight of your scarf.Re-knitting an existing scarf is probably not something you want to do.Simple math is what you need to apply from here.If your scarf is two times longer, duplicate the weight.If it should be 50% wider, then divide it by 1.5.
As soon as you are knitting a different material, yarn size, or fundamentally different pattern, weighing will give you very inaccurate results, so make sure to check out my guide on the best knitting yarn for beginners.
If you can return unused extra skeins, talk to the shop owner.You will probably have to buy more yarn than you need because it is sold in skeins of 50 or 100 grams.
A small swatch in the pattern of the scarf will be used to calculate the yarn requirements for the professional way.The rest will be told by math after that.If you want to knit a scarf that is 8 inches wide and 60 inches long, you need 300 yards of yarn.
You need to buy yarn in yards of the swatch for this formula to work.
You need a yarn that is similar to the one you want to buy in order to use this method.It is fairly easy to accumulate a lot of yarn when you are a long time knitter.
You could only buy one skein and knit a swatch.I don't recommend it because the other skeins will most probably be from a different dye lot.It is better to talk with the shop owner and buy a little more, knit your swatch and give back the rest.
The swatching method can be used to calculate yarn requirements for a blanket.
A lot of yarn has a label with information on it.You can find the gauge of the yarn and yarn requirements there.It only tells you how much yarn you'll need for a size 40 pullover.No pullovers are the same and the information is close to useless, so you can ignore that number.
It also will tell you the gauge, so there is a way to solve it.If you knit with needles size X, you will need about 10 stitches and rows to complete a swatch of 10 x 10 centimeters.
This information is useless to calculate the yarn requirements for a scarf because it lacks information on how much yarn was used.If you have another wool for the same needle size at home, you can knit a swatch in the pattern.You can divide the total number of stitches on the label of your wool at home by the number you need to knit the sample swatch.It will give you a factor of 1.2.
If you want to knit the whole scarf, you have to calculate how much yarn you need and then add it to the factor above.You will know how much space you need.This method is not perfect, but it is a viable crutch when you need to order yarn online.
There are a lot of tables full of information on the internet.A lot of them will look like this one.
You may think that is nice.You have an answer.The tables don't tell you how these numbers change if you change the length of your scarf or pattern.They don't give you a sample like the scarf knitted in stockinette stitch 10 inches wide and 50 long.I am saying that these tables are worthless.You should trust them at your own risk.
The easiest way to success is this method.How much yarn you need to knit the scarf will be provided by most professional patterns.If you're a knitting beginner and you only understand half of what I'm talking about, you should buy a professional scarf pattern and follow the instructions.
People ask how many balls of wool they need for a scarf.They want answers like, buy 3 balls.All yarn is not the same.Some skeins are bigger and some are smaller.A pattern will usually tell you how much you need to spend.
Knitting a swatch is the most reliable way to find out how much yarn you need to knit a scarf.You can't give a rough guestimation with knitting calculators and tables.It is tempting to simply insert a couple of numbers into a form and it will show you how many skeins you need to buy.These tables will not be able to adjust for the fact that you will need 50% more yarn for a complicated cable pattern.
A lot of beginners shy away from swatch knitting.You are devoting 15-20 minutes of your time for something you need to untangle 5 minutes later.You are just trying to get started and it sounds so professional.You want a quick and easy answer to how much yarn you need for a scarf.
It is worth knitting that swatch.It will save you money and time.Building a trusted relationship with your local yarn/crafts store will help you a lot.They know the yarns and can help you return excess yarn you don't need.You are not the first knitter to face the same problem.
You should always buy more yarn at the end of the day.You cannot fix a scarf that is too short.You can always use scraps for smaller projects.Matching mittens or a little hat could be your next project.At a later point, you may have to fix your project.Maybe the dog chewed on the cigarette.If you have extra yarn in the same color, you can use it to fix your work.
Remember, not to stress too much about this question.You can't buy half a skein anyways.If your estimate says you need 500 yards of yarn, but the wool only comes in 220-yard skeins, then you will end up overbuying.
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