# How much yarn do I need?

> How much yarn a crochet pattern needs: count its stitches exactly, then turn that into grams, metres and whole balls — calibrated from a project you have already made.

**Why this can be exact where a rule of thumb cannot.** Paste a pattern and the stitch count is the compiler's own — the same one the 3D preview is built from, with range rounds ("Round 4-6") expanded, because that is three rounds of yarn even though it is one line of text. What remains is a single number: grams per stitch. Measure it once from a project you have finished — its stitch count, and what the yarn weighed — and every estimate after that is arithmetic rather than guesswork. Two people with the same yarn and the same pattern genuinely differ, which is why every yarn calculator on the web disagrees with every other one.

**Balls are rounded up, always.** Running out with two rounds left is the outcome the tool exists to prevent, and a spare ball is a smaller problem than a dye lot you can no longer match.

## Starting points, until you calibrate

| Yarn weight | Grams per stitch | A 1,000-stitch piece |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 4 ply / fingering | 0.018 g | about 18 g |
| DK / light worsted | 0.032 g | about 32 g |
| Worsted / aran | 0.045 g | about 45 g |
| Chunky | 0.085 g | about 85 g |

⚠️ **These are rules of thumb and nothing more.** They come from the arithmetic every amigurumi maker has done backwards at some point — a small worsted plush of roughly a thousand stitches taking roughly a 50 g ball — and they carry all the uncertainty that implies. Their job is to make the page useful before calibration, not to be believed after it.

**Metres and balls** come from the ball band: grams ÷ the band's grams × its metres, and the ball count rounded up.

The calculator is at [https://crochet3d.com/tools/crochet-yarn-calculator](https://crochet3d.com/tools/crochet-yarn-calculator), with six questions answered.

Source: https://crochet3d.com/tools/crochet-yarn-calculator