Yarn amount from a swatch, weigh it, don't guess.
Weigh a swatch, measure the project: the grams, yards and skeins it needs in your yarn and your stitch, with a margin for seams and tails.
Your swatch
The project
The skein
Why weigh a swatch
General charts of "yards for a scarf" disagree with each other because they cannot know your yarn, your stitch or your tension. Weight can: grams needed = swatch grams × project area ÷ swatch area, plus a margin. Knit or crochet the swatch in the stitch pattern of the project, at least four inches square, and trim the tails before weighing it.
Getting the most from it
- Ribbing, cables, bobbles and dense crochet stitches use much more yarn per square inch than plain fabric; swatch the actual pattern.
- A kitchen scale that reads to 1 gram is fine for a big swatch; for a small one, a scale reading to 0.1 gram is better.
- For a sweater, add up the pieces: two sleeves, front and back as rectangles of their widest size give a safe overestimate.
- Buy all skeins from one dye lot. A skein from a later lot can be a visibly different shade.
What to wind the yarn with
A ball winder turns a skein into a centre-pull ball; a swift holds the skein open while you wind. The details below come from one maker's product pages, Stanwood Needlecraft (read 28 October 2026), and the links search Amazon for the exact name. If one skein weighs more than a winder holds - about 113 g for the 4-oz models - it will not go into one ball.
Ball winders
- Stanwood Compact Yarn Ball Winder YBW-A. Centre-pull balls of about 4 oz; the clamp takes a table, chair or bench edge up to about 1¾ in thick. The maker says it runs smoother and quieter than its YBW-B. Find it on Amazon
- Stanwood Compact Yarn Ball Winder YBW-B. Also about 4 oz; clamps to edges up to about 1½ in. The cogwheels are fully sealed so they cannot catch the yarn. Find it on Amazon
- Stanwood Compact Yarn Ball Winder 7 Oz YBW-M. About 7 oz per ball, between the maker's 4-oz and 10-oz winders; clamps to edges up to about 1¾ in. Find it on Amazon
- Stanwood Large Metal Yarn Ball Winder 10 oz. About 10 oz, 2.5 times the small winders; nylon cogwheels, and no tools needed to put it together. Find it on Amazon
Swifts
- Stanwood Amish Style Tabletop Wooden Yarn Swift. Holds skeins from 2½ to 6 ft around by moving the pegs; stands on four non-slip pads and comes apart for storage. Find it on Amazon
- Stanwood Wooden Umbrella Swift, Medium. Skeins up to 6 ft around; clamps to edges up to 1¾ in thick. Find it on Amazon
- Stanwood Wooden Umbrella Swift, Large. Skeins up to 8.5 ft around, in birch; clamps to edges up to 1¾ in thick. Find it on Amazon
Do you need a swift?
Stanwood's own answer: its winders work best with a swift, but other devices, or simply your arms, can hold the skein instead.