Calculating Yardage for a Project

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Planning yarn amounts can sometimes feel a little confusing, especially when you’re starting a new project. This chart is designed to give you a simple reference point so you can estimate yarn needs with a bit more confidence.

How to Estimate Yarn for a Weaving Project

Let’s talk about one of the most common questions weavers have—how much yarn do I need for a project?

If you’ve ever started a project and are worried you might not have enough yarn for your project, you’re not alone!

You don’t need complicated math to figure this out. Once you understand a few simple steps, you can estimate yarn for almost any project.

The Two Things We Need to Calculate Yardage

Warp yarn

• The yarn that runs the length of the loom (warp length)
• Measured by number of ends (number of ends x warp length)

Weft yarn

• The yarn woven back and forth across the warp
• Measured by how many picks per inch (picks per inch x width)

Determine Finished Size

For this example, we’ll use a simple towel design. When planning your project, remember to start with measurements that are a bit larger than the finished size you want. This allows room for take-up on the loom and shrinkage during wet finishing.

If you need your fabric to finish at a very specific size, I recommend weaving a sample first so you can measure exactly how much take-up and shrinkage occurs. For projects like towels, however, an exact finished size usually isn’t as critical.

As a general guideline, I like to add about 1 inch for take-up and at least 10% for shrinkage when calculating my starting measurements. This helps ensure your finished fabric turns out close to the size you’re aiming for.

Starting size for towels
20" wide
30" long
We want to calculate the amounts to weave two towels.

The first thing we need to know is the size of the towels. This will be before wet finishing, so you’ll want to make your starting size a little bigger than your finished size. When weaving with cotton yarns I like to add 1-2 inches in both width and length to get started.

Example:

Width: 20 inches
Length: 30 inches
Number of items: 2

The total woven length will be: 30 × 2 = 60 inches

Add Loom Waste and Shrinkage

When we weave, not every inch of warp becomes fabric.

We must account for:

Loom waste
Usually 20–30 inches depending on the loom.

Rigid heddle looms use less waste than floor looms.

Example:

Woven length: 60 inches
Loom waste: 30 inches

Total: 90 inches

Add take-up and shrinkage.

As yarn interlaces, it shortens slightly. Add about 10%.

90” + 9” = 99”

The total warp length would be around 99” inches.

Calculate Warp Ends

How to calculate Ends Per Inch (EPI).

“EPI depends on:

• yarn size
• weave structure”

Example with Aurora Earth 8/2 cotton:

Plain weave: 20 epi

20 inch wide towel
20 epi

Calculation:

20 × 20 = 400 warp ends

This tells us how many individual threads we need in the warp.

Calculate Warp Yardage

Now calculate the number of ends by the length.

Warp length = 99”
Warp ends = 400

Multiply:

400 × 99 = 39,600 inches

Divide 39,600 by 36 to get total yards.

Total warp yarn needed: 1100 yard

Calculate Weft Yarn

To calculate weft yarn needed you’ll multiply picks per inch x the weaving width.

Our towels are 20” wide and we will estimate that our Aurora Earth 8/2 Cotton will weave at about 18 picks per inch.

Example:

20 inch width

18 picks per inch

20 x 18 = 360 inches

Convert to yards by dividing 360 by 36 = 10 yards

We need 10 yards of yarn to weave 1” of fabric.

We want to weave 60 inches of fabric.

60 x 10 = 600 yards for weft

Total Warp and Weft for Two Towels

Warp yarns needed: 1100 yards

Weft yarns needed: 600 yards

Always Add Extra Yarn

This is one of the most important tip I can give when figuring yardage amounts.

I always recommend adding extra yarn to your calculations. For this project, I would allow about 1200 yards for the warp and 700 yards for the weft. Having that little bit of extra yarn helps remove the worry of running short and gives you some flexibility as you weave.

Reasons:

• sampling
• mistakes
• loom waste differences
• design changes

It’s much better to have yarn left over than to run out near the end of a project.

I hope this information is helpful while you are planning your next weaving project. Please reach out to jodi@cottonclouds.com if you need some extra help or have any questions.

Click here to Download and Print your FREE project sheet!

Happy weaving!

Jodi Ybarra