How to use the blanket yarn calculator
- Pick a blanket size, or type your own width and length. If you want a border, enter its width on each side. Making it for a bed? Open the bed sizing box, choose the mattress and how far the blanket should hang over the sides, and tap "Use this size".
- Make a swatch in the stitch you'll use, around 4 inches square. Measure it and enter how much yarn it took, either in yards or by weighing it in grams.
- If you also count the stitches and rows in your swatch, the calculator will tell you roughly how long to make your starting chain and how many rows to work.
- Enter the yards and grams printed on your yarn label, and a price if you want a cost estimate.
- No swatch yet? Choose "Quick estimate by yarn weight" for a rough range, then come back with a swatch before you buy.
How the calculation works
The swatch tells us how much yarn goes into one square inch of your fabric. Multiply that by the area of the blanket and you have the yarn for the body. A border is just extra area around the outside. The calculator works out the area of the bordered blanket and subtracts the area of the body to get the border on its own.
If you weighed your swatch, the grams are turned into yards using your yarn label. For example, if a 100 g skein holds 200 yards, a swatch weighing 8 g used 16 yards. The calculator then adds your safety margin and divides by the yards in one skein, rounding up, because you can't buy part of a skein.
Formulas
- Yarn per square inch = yarn in swatch ÷ (swatch width × swatch length).
- Body area = blanket width × blanket length.
- Border area = (width + 2 × border) × (length + 2 × border) − body area.
- Total yards = (body area + border area) × yarn per square inch × (1 + extra %).
- Skeins = total yards ÷ yards per skein, rounded up.
- Total weight = total yards ÷ yards per skein × grams per skein.
- Bed blanket = mattress width + 2 × overhang, by mattress length + overhang + pillow tuck.
Worked example: a throw with a border
Say you want a 50" × 60" throw with a 2 inch border. Your 4" × 4" swatch used 15 yards. That's 16 square inches, so each square inch takes 0.9375 yards.
With the border the blanket measures 54" × 64", which is 3,456 square inches. The body alone is 3,000 square inches, so the border adds 456. All of it together needs 3,456 × 0.9375 = 3,240 yards. Adding 10% gives 3,564 yards. In 200-yard skeins that's 17.8, so buy 18 skeins.
If the swatch has 14 stitches and 16 rows, the body needs about 175 stitches across and 240 rows.
Rough yarn guide by blanket size
These ranges are for crochet with no safety margin, worked out with the same quick estimate the calculator uses. Real projects vary a lot with stitch pattern and tension, so use them for planning and use your swatch for buying.
| Size | Light / DK (3) | Medium / worsted (4) | Bulky (5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crib 45" × 60" | 2,565 to 2,970 yd | 2,025 to 2,700 yd | 1,620 to 2,160 yd |
| Throw 50" × 60" | 2,850 to 3,300 yd | 2,250 to 3,000 yd | 1,800 to 2,400 yd |
| Twin 66" × 90" | 5,643 to 6,534 yd | 4,455 to 5,940 yd | 3,564 to 4,752 yd |
| Queen 90" × 100" | 8,550 to 9,900 yd | 6,750 to 9,000 yd | 5,400 to 7,200 yd |
| King 108" × 100" | 10,260 to 11,880 yd | 8,100 to 10,800 yd | 6,480 to 8,640 yd |
How much yarn for a blanket from one swatch
The ranges above are wide because they guess at your fabric. This table holds one fabric steady instead: a 4 inch square swatch that used 15 yards, which is the calculator's default. It shows how the total grows with size and what a border costs. Scale it to your own swatch: if yours used 12 yards, multiply every number by 12 ÷ 15.
| Size | Body, no buffer | 2" border adds | 4" border adds | 200 yd skeins with 10% extra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stroller 30" × 35" | 985 yd | 259 yd | 547 yd | 6 |
| Receiving 40" × 40" | 1,500 yd | 315 yd | 660 yd | 9 |
| Crib 45" × 60" | 2,532 yd | 408 yd | 847 yd | 14 |
| Lapghan 36" × 48" | 1,620 yd | 330 yd | 690 yd | 9 |
| Throw 50" × 60" | 2,813 yd | 427 yd | 885 yd | 16 |
| Twin 66" × 90" | 5,569 yd | 600 yd | 1,230 yd | 31 |
| Full 80" × 90" | 6,750 yd | 653 yd | 1,335 yd | 38 |
| Queen 90" × 100" | 8,438 yd | 727 yd | 1,485 yd | 47 |
| King 108" × 100" | 10,125 yd | 795 yd | 1,620 yd | 56 |
Two things stand out. A border costs more than it looks: on a throw, a 2 inch border adds 427 yards, about 15 percent of the body. On a queen the same border is only 9 percent, because the edge grows more slowly than the area. And a queen needs about three times the yarn of a throw (8,438 against 2,813 yards), so a guess that works for a throw can leave you many skeins short on a bed blanket.
For knitting, the quick estimate scales the crochet figure down by 1.3. That puts a knitted worsted throw at about 1,731 to 2,308 yards. Treat that factor as a rough rule. A knitted swatch gives a real number.
How these numbers compare with other yarn charts
Published blanket yardage charts disagree, and the blanket size behind each range explains much of the gap. Handy Little Me lists 1,500 to 2,500 yards of worsted for a lapghan or throw.
Our quick estimate for a 50" × 60" crochet throw in worsted is higher, at 2,250 to 3,000 yards. The knitted estimate of 1,731 to 2,308 yards falls inside that range. If you crochet a dense stitch, plan for the higher end.
Bed sizes vary even more. A queen in one chart can be the 60 by 80 inch top of the mattress with no overhang. Our queen preset is 90 by 100 inches so it hangs over the sides, and it needs about three times the yarn of a throw. Before you compare any two yardage charts, check the inches each one uses. Our blanket size chart lists the sizes this calculator uses.
How the stitch pattern changes the amount
Textured stitches like bobbles, popcorn and cables pack more yarn into each inch than a plain stitch. The calculator's default 10 percent extra is meant for tension, joining and ends, so it may not cover a switch to a heavy textured stitch. Swatch in the textured stitch itself, or raise the extra percentage. You can type any figure.
Sizing a blanket for a bed
A bed blanket needs to cover the top of the mattress and hang down the sides and the foot. The head end stays flat against the headboard, so overhang is added to the length only once. A queen mattress is 60 by 80 inches. With 12 inches of overhang it needs a blanket of 84 by 92 inches; add a 10 inch pillow tuck and the length becomes 102 inches.
For how far to hang over, measure the mattress depth to cover just the edge, or from the top of the mattress to the floor for a full bedspread. Our blanket size chart lists mattress sizes.
Tips for getting the amount right
- Swatch in the real stitch pattern. A swatch in single crochet won't predict the yarn for a blanket made of bobbles or shells.
- Buy everything from one dye lot. The lot number is printed on the label, next to the color name.
- Weigh the leftover end of your first skein. If it runs out sooner than the calculator suggested, your tension is tighter than your swatch and you can reorder early.
- Stripes and color changes use a little more yarn for weaving in ends, so a higher safety margin helps.