First, you need to calculate your weft requirements. I share how to do that here.

Next, estimate how much yarn you have on hand. I share how to do that here. (For this project, I used the McMorran yarn balance to estimate my yardage.)

​This narrowed down my options to two weft colors - magenta and a colorgrown beige cotton.
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Often, I've used my weaving software just as a way to plan out the structure. But most weaving software allows you to play with colors, and this is a great starting point!

Be sure to select the colors that are closest to the ones you actually plan to use! Sometimes this is enough to help me choose my colors.

If it's not, though, I save each potential color as a .jpg file to use in the next step.

I use the "mockups" feature in Canva, PlaceIt also has a lot of textile options. To use these, simply drag and drop your .jpg file of your drawdown onto the image, and it will add shapes and shadows to help you imagine what it will look like as a three-dimensional object.

I found these incredibly helpful in thinking about which weft to choose. The magenta weft (on the left) is bright and modern, while the beige weft (on the right) reminds me of a vintage hand-knotted rug. 

A zoom loom uses only 8 yards of yarn, and is a great way to see how colors combine in weaving. For this project, I used leftovers of warp from the warping process to audition my weft colors. Then I was able to place the samples on the sofa (where the finished blanket will go) and think about which one would work better.
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• Yarn wrapping is a great way to visualize how colors will look together in a warp.
• Use each project as part of your "sample library." If you frequently work with similar yarns, you'll know what sett you want to use right away. Then each project builds on the next!
• Learn color theory basics - this book is a great place to start!
• Make a gamp - this is a great way to sample color combinations, structures, and treadlings. Gamps often make really attractive wall hangings, too! 
• Buy other people's samples. Is this cheating? I don't think so! Many weaving guilds used to assemble notebooks of samples. These are often sold at weavers' estate sales, as well as on Facebook and Ravelry. Often, they scratch the itch of what a certain structure looks/feels like, or how a certain yarn might behave. If you can find them, they are well worth the investment!

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While I did jump through a bunch of hurdles to avoid extensive sampling, it's still an important part of the weaving process. 

Sampling is essential if you’re experimenting with a new yarn, structure, or technique. It’s especially important to wet-finish your samples so you know how big to make your piece on the loom. And if you have a lot of “what-if” questions, lots of samples with small variations are definitely the way to go!

My sett choices for this project were based on other projects with similar yarns and weave structures. In essence, other projects served as the samples for this one. 
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It's still in progress! Because of the number of treadles involved, I can only weave about 6 inches before needing to take a break and do some yoga. More to come soon!

Have you ever wanted to start a project but weren’t sure how much yarn you had? Maybe you were using leftovers from your stash, or maybe you were using a mystery yarn or handspun that didn’t even have a label!

You COULD wing it and hope for the best, but that’s a great way to lose at yarn chicken. It's always fun when you win, but if you get 90% of the way through a project and realize you don't have enough yarn and can't get more...well, I've been there, and it's a huge disappointment.

If you're not sure whether you have enough yarn, the best thing to do is to estimate! Luckily, there are quite a few different techniques available. In this post, I'll show you how to do each one, plus talk about the pros and cons of each. With all these techniques available, there's sure to be one that suits your preferences!

For most of these techniques, you'll need a digital scale and a calculator. The calculator on your phone will work just fine!

If you want to dive into some of the other techniques, you'll need a WPI tool, such as the one I sell, a McMorran Yarn Balance, a niddy noddy or warping board (choose what you already have!), and a measuring tape or ruler.

It might cost me a few sales, but I'll let you know right now - the WPI method is the least accurate way to estimate your yarn! WPI tools are great for many things, but estimating large quantities of yarn isn't one of them. 

The most accurate way to estimate your yardage is using the ball band. You're looking for two pieces of information: the weight, and the yardage or meterage. (My example only gives this information in Metric. If yours uses both, pick the one you are most likely to work with,)

Then you'll weigh your partially used ball to see how much you have left. 

Then you'll plug your known quantities into one of the formulas below to determine your remaining yardage.

To use the first formula, multiply the original length of the ball of yarn by the remaining weight, and the original weight by X, or the remaining length of yarn.

That gets me:
25x = 1034.25

Next, we need to isolate X, so we’ll divide 1034.25 by 25, and our answer is that we have 41.37 meters of yarn left.

Another way to calculate this is to divide the length by the weight.

105 meters/25 grams = 4.2 meters per gram.

Then I will multiply that by the weight of the yarn I have left:

4.2 meters/gram x 9.85 grams = 41.37 meters of yarn. 
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If I really need to know what that is in yards, I can convert it. 1 meter equals 1.0936 yards.

​1.0936 x 41.37 = 45.243 yards

Take your wraps per inch without stretching the yarn. Then compare that number to a YPP chart like the one above to get an estimated yards per pound. 

When I searched for yards per pound charts, I noticed that no two were the same. The most accurate one I found was Interweave's "Master Yarn Chart," which was developed for weavers. This is helpful if you know exactly what your yarn is, but it also points to one of the big failings of this method: there are just so many different kinds of fibers out there, all with different densities. 

Going back to my Shetland Spindrift example, this technique tells me there are 2600 (or more) yards per pound. The manufacturer's label gives a number that is 2,050 yards per pound, so that's way off!

Using the WPI estimate, however, I get 5.1 meters per gram, and 50.23  meters in this ball of yarn. Remember that we calculated 41.37 meters with the manufacturer's information, so that’s a difference of 8.86 meters, or a whopping 21% difference.

​This is the one method I never use, and it's why I don't sell a WPI tool with the intentions of calculating yardage. They're great for other things, like ensuring consistency in spinning, but they just don't come up to scratch here!
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The point of this technique is to wind your yarn into a new skein that is easy to measure. You can use a niddy noddy or warping board, but I would recommend against an umbrella swift, since the growing tension of a skein will distort the circumference.

The key to this technique is that you know the distance the yarn travels around your tool, and then you count the number of times the yarn went around it. Multiply the length by the number of loops to get the total length of your yarn. 
In this example, I wound the yarn around a 2-yard niddy noddy. I made 25 revolutions.

2 yards x 25 revolutions = 50 yards (45 meters)

This is 3.97 yards/3.63 meters longer or 10% MORE than our original estimate.

This number is pretty far off, even though the yarn is being wrapped around a fixed circumference. The reason for that is stretch.  Even being careful to not pull it too tight, the yarn did stretch quite a bit.

To account for this, be sure to take a measurement of the relaxed skein, after it's been taken off the skeinwinder. (Don't forget to tie your skein ties!) 

I determined that the total circumference of this skein in the relaxed state was 62 inches, or 1.72 yards

1.72 yards x 25 revolutions = 43.05 yards (39.2 meters)


This is 2.17 meters/2.37 yards, or 5% less than our original estimate, and a number I'd be very comfortable working with.

Running your yarn over a yardage counter is pretty straightforward. There are a variety out there, from inexpensive counters designed for fishing line, to this fancy one from the maker of the Electric Eel Spinning Wheel.

As with the niddy noddy technique, using a yarn counter risks stretching the yarn and distorting your measurement. To get the most accurate measurement possible, be sure to keep the yarn slack as it runs over the counter - don't pull it tight with your hands.

Meters all vary in how they give their readings. Mine gives its reading in tenths of yards. I got a reading of just under 46 meters, or 42 yards. That's only .63 meters, or 2% more than our original estimate, and by far the closest number to the original estimate!

While this is very accurate, I'd probably only use it on small-ish amounts of yarn. Unless you have access to industrial, it can become very tedious to measure very large amounts of yarn using this technique.

If none of the above methods appeal to you, you can always measure out a known quantity of yarn - 10 yards or meters, or even the amount of yarn it takes to knit one row. You'd then weigh that and run it through the original formulas. 

Since I was using a very accurate scale, I measured out 1 yard of yarn (I wish I'd done a meter instead!), and used the formula from the beginning to estimate that I had 39.15 meters of yarn. This was 2.22 meters, or 6% less than our original estimate.

Sorry, but I can't choose a winner here! The best method all comes down to your needs, and the equipment you have available to you.

Maybe you want the most accurate estimate possible. In that case, I'd highly recommend the ballband or yardage meter method. 

The WPI method was the least accurate, and I'd steer you away from that one.

This chart breaks down the extra tools needed (assuming you have a calculator and a ruler), plus the amount of math needed to perform the calculations. ​Over the years, I've amassed all the "extra" tools, but if I had to choose just one, it would be a digital scale. 

When it comes down to it, the two methods I use most often are:

• Using the ballband and the weight
• Using a McMorran Yarn Balance (especially for coned and handspun yarn)

I do use my yardage meter pretty frequently, but I'm more likely to use it to split a skein of yarn into two equal halves (say for sock knitting) than to try to pin down a definite yardage/meterage.