How to calculate yardage for your crochet or knit projects

Get yardage right every time with this handy tutorial

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Hey there fellow crocheters and knitters!

If you landed on this page, you’re probably looking for a quick formula to calculate yardage for your crochet or knitting project. You probably made this Google search more than once…

But what if I told you I have a way to help you never have to do that search again?

Follow this easy tutorial on how to calculate yardage and I promise, you will always remember how to do this calculation for all your future projects 😁

Let's get started, shall we?

You’re gonna need

your finished object,
the yarn label (the information on it can usually also be found online),
and a digital scale. (I use a regular digital kitchen scale).

First, weigh your finished object and write down the number. This works the same for both grams and ounces, but make sure you write down which one you’re using.

Note: Never mix together grams and ounces. So, if you like to use grams instead of ounces, like I do, weigh your project in grams and take the grams information from the yarn label.

Then, write down the information from the yarn label.

Important rule: The weight of your skein always goes underneath the weight of your finished object. This is key.

The yardage of your skein goes to the right, like so:

The missing number is your yardage for the project, this is what you need to calculate!

Now, the trick to always remembering what to input into your calculator is to imagine these four numbers like the corners of the letter “X” or the corners of a square.

You first multiply the two numbers that form a complete “diagonal line” (so you have project weight x how many meters there are in a skein).

And then you divide this by the third available number (which is the weight of the skein).

So, you would input this into the calculator: 101 × 130 ÷ 50. The resulting number (262.6 m) is the exact yardage for your project!

Remember:

⦿ There are 3 numbers you already know (project weight, skein weight, skein length), and a 4th one you need to calculate (project length, also known as yardage).

⦿ Weight goes underneath weight, and length goes underneath length.

⦿ Visualize these 4 numbers as if they form two intersecting diagonal lines.

⦿ You multiply the diagonal that has 2 known numbers, and divide by the third number. The result is your yardage for the project 😊