Crochet Stripe Yarn Calculator

You know roughly how much yarn the whole project takes. What you do not know is how much of it is cream and how much is terracotta — which is the number you need at the till. This divides a total you already have between the colours of your stripe pattern, and turns each share into whole skeins.

How yarn is divided between colours

The colour repeat and stripe planning guide covers the decision this tool comes after — how to build the sequence, how a symmetric repeat joins itself, and how to decide the rows per colour in the first place.

The arithmetic is a proportion and nothing more. Count the rows each colour occupies, divide by the total rows, and that fraction of the total yarn is that colour’s share.

A 4 / 2 / 1 stripe repeated 20 times gives 80, 40 and 20 rows — 140 in all. So colour A takes 57.1 per cent of the yarn, B takes 28.6 and C takes 14.3. Against a 1200 yd total that is 686, 343 and 171 yards.

The shares are shown to one decimal place and made to add up to exactly 100, which they otherwise would not: three equal colours each round to 33.3 and total 99.9, and a table that does not add up looks broken when it is not.

Everything downstream of this depends on one assumption, which the next section is about: that a row of one colour uses the same yarn as a row of another.

Constant-width versus shaped projects

Counting rows works when the rows are the same length. On a scarf, a blanket, a straight-sided cushion, they are, and the row count is a fair stand-in for yarn.

On anything shaped it is not, and the error is not small. A row across the hem of a jumper and a row across the shoulder are both one row, but one might be twice the stitches of the other. A triangular shawl is worse: the first row and the last can differ by a factor of ten or more.

In the example above, weighting colour A’s rows as twice as wide as the others moves its share from 686 yd to 873 yd — a difference of 16 per cent of the whole project. That is not a rounding error; it is the difference between buying enough and not.

So the calculator has a weighted mode. Give each colour the average number of stitches in its rows and it divides by rows × stitches instead of by rows alone. It is still an approximation — an average flattens the variation within a colour — but it is a far better one.

Where a single colour spans both wide and narrow parts of a shaped piece, the honest approach is to split the project into sections, run each section separately, and add the results. A yoke and a body are different calculations wearing the same jumper.

How stripe repeats affect yarn quantity

Here is a thing worth noticing: changing the number of repeats does not change the proportions at all.

Four rows of A and two of B is two-thirds A whether you work it twice or two hundred times. The repeat count changes how long the piece is, not how the colours divide, so if you are only after the split you can leave it at any value.

What does change the proportions is anything outside the repeat. A six-row border in one colour, a contrasting cuff, a hem worked before the stripes begin — those rows belong to one colour and not the others, and they shift the balance. On a short piece they shift it a lot: six border rows on a 14-row scarf is a different blanket from six border rows on a 140-row one.

That is what the “extra rows outside the repeat” field is for. Put border and cuff rows there rather than trying to fold them into the sequence, because they do not repeat and folding them in would multiply them.

Convert yardage into skeins by colour

A length is not a shopping list. Yarn is sold in whole skeins, so every colour has to round up on its own — and that is where multi-colour projects cost more than they look like they should.

In the worked example, the three colours need 686, 343 and 171 yards. At 200 yd a skein that is 4, 2 and 1 skeins — 7 in total. The same 1200 yards in a single colour would be 6 skeins.

So the stripes cost 1 extra skein, and there is no way to plan that away. Each colour pays its own rounding, so the cost of rounding is charged once per colour rather than once per project. Add a fourth colour and you add a fourth rounding.

This is worth knowing before you choose how many colours to stripe in, particularly for a small project. A six-colour scarf may need six skeins to make something that uses two skeins’ worth of yarn.

Skein lengths can differ per colour, because put-ups do — a main shade in 400 m skeins and accents in little 50 g balls is a common combination, and using one figure for both would be wrong for one of them by construction.

Worked stripe examples

A blanket takes 1200 yd in total, striped 4 rows cream, 2 terracotta, 1 sage, repeated 20 times. The yarn comes in 200 yd skeins.

Reading it: cream takes 57.1 per cent because it holds 80 of the 140 rows, and 686 yd needs 4 skeins with 114 yd left over. The skeins column adds to 7, against 6 for a single-colour blanket of the same size.

The same blanket, shaped. Suppose cream is used across the wide middle and the other two at the tapered ends, so cream’s rows average twice the stitches. Weighted that way, cream takes 873 yd rather than 686 — 16 per cent of the project moved by an assumption about row length alone.

With a border. Add a 6-row cream border outside the repeat and cream gains those rows while the others do not. On a 140-row blanket that is a small shift; on a 30-row cushion it would be a large one.

Common multi-colour yarn planning mistakes

Treating rows as yarn on a shaped piece. The most expensive mistake here, and the easiest to make, because the arithmetic looks the same either way. If the rows are not the same length, weight them.

Forgetting the border. Borders and edgings are often a single colour and often substantial — a round worked all the way around a blanket is longer than any row in it. Put them in the extra-rows field, or calculate them separately.

Buying to the exact length. The figures here are what the fabric consumes. Weaving in ends takes yarn that never appears in a row, and every colour change is two ends. No allowance is added for that here, because how much a woven end takes depends on your yarn and your method — but it is not zero, and a striped piece has a lot of them.

Assuming one dye lot will do. If a colour needs three skeins, all three should come from one lot. Working that out per colour, in advance, is most of why this calculation is worth doing before you shop rather than after.

Splitting a total that was already an estimate. If the total came from a rough guess, every share inherits that roughness. Dividing an approximation precisely does not make it precise.

Ignoring what the leftovers cost. Six colours means six part-skeins left over. That may be fine — it is how stashes are built — but it should be a choice rather than a surprise.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I get the total? From your pattern, from an estimate of the whole project, or by weighing a finished project in the same yarn. This page does not estimate it.

Does the number of repeats change the answer? Not the proportions, no. It changes the length of the piece. Only rows outside the repeat move the balance between colours.

Can I use grams instead of yards? The arithmetic is the same for any unit — enter grams as the total and the shares come back in grams. The yard-to-metre conversion shown alongside will not be meaningful, so ignore that column.

Why does it say I need more skeins than the project needs yarn? Because each colour rounds up separately. Three colours needing 1.2 skeins each is 3.6 skeins of yarn and 6 skeins of shopping.

Should I add extra for weaving in ends? Probably, and this page does not do it for you. There is no honest fixed percentage — it depends on your yarn, how long you leave your tails and how you weave them — so any number offered here would be invented.

What about a gradient rather than stripes? If each colour still occupies a whole number of rows, this works. If colours are held together and blended, it does not, because a row is then part one colour and part another.

Methodology and limits

• Rows per colour are its rows in the repeat times the number of repeats, plus any rows outside the repeat.
• The share is that colour’s weight over the total weight. Unweighted, the weight is the row count; weighted, it is rows × average stitches per row.
• The length is the total you supplied times that share. The colour lengths sum to your total exactly.
• The printed shares are reconciled by largest remainder so they total exactly 100.
• Skeins are the length over the skein length, rounded up, per colour, with each colour’s own skein length.
• 1 yard is 0.9144 metres, which is a definition rather than a measurement.
• The total is yours. This page divides it and does not estimate it, so the accuracy of every figure here is the accuracy of that input.
• Nothing is added for ends, joins or seams, and no percentage is offered for them, because there is no honest one to give.
• Rows are not yarn unless rows are equal length. On shaped pieces use the weighted mode, and for a colour spanning both wide and narrow sections, split the project and add the results.

Related calculators and guides

• Stripe Pattern Generator — designing the sequence in the first place.
• Yarn Yardage Calculator — the total this page divides.
• Color Repeat & Stripe Planning Guide — the method behind this tool: designing the sequence before counting the yarn.
• Gauge Swatch Calculator — the measurement behind any yarn estimate.
• Crochet Colorwork Techniques — joining and carrying colours between stripes.
• How to Calculate Yarn Yardage — where a total comes from, and how rough it really is.