How much Yarn Do I Need?

[Peggy Dorgan]

I am getting ready to start a project for my Grandaughter & need help figuring how much yarn I need. The swatch I made has 5 rows in 2" & 8 stitches in 2". I know how to figure out how many chains to start & how many rows I need. What I don't know is how much yarn I need. Her blanket will be 81"W x 96"L. I have a photo but do not have a pattern for it but it is simply rows of HDC in back loop only. Can someone help me with this?

[Granny Square]

Make a generous sized swatch in that stitch pattern and same weight yarn - no less than 6" square.  Don't cut the yarn, but mark the yarn with a paperclip or something that will stay put, and unravel it.  Measure the yardage used from the end to the paperclip.  Then figure the yardage per square foot - example, if you made a 6" square and it took 25 yards, it would take 4 squares that size to make a square foot, or 100 yards per square foot (making up numbers).  

81x96 inches is 7776 square inches, divided by 144 (inches per sq ft) is 54 sq  feet.  Multiply the number of yards you calculated for 1 square foot, by 54, and that's the yardage needed.  You'll want to round up when buying skeins, better to overbuy a little, have a few partial skeins left over than run short and not be able to find dye lots to match.  

 

 

[Peggy Dorgan]

Thank you, Granny Square. Your math skills are better than mine but I understand it & it makes perfect sense. I always buy extra because I learned the lesson about dye lots the hard way.

Many Thanks!

[Peggy Dorgan]

Granny Square, I hope I did this correctly. I used 28 yards for a 6" square times 4 is 112 yards times 54 is 6048.

[Granny Square]

Looks right to me.  (pssst...I'm terrible at doing math in my head...I just keep a calculator handy for crochet math!)

Also sounds in the ballpark based on the number I picked for my math example.  I've noticed that a lot of sofa throw patterns, which are usually about 4'x5' so 20 square ft., call for roughly 3000 yards plus or minus, so I picked a round number for my math example that would come close to double that figure, since your blanket was more than double 'sofa throw' size.