POCOPOCO JOURNAL
How many balls of substitute yarn do you need?
Equal grams or ball counts do not establish equal amounts of yarn. Compare the required length, then keep your quantity estimate separate from checking whether a replacement suits the pattern.
About 3 minutes to read
If the yarn specified in a pattern is unavailable, can you buy the same number of balls of another yarn? Start with the length required, rather than grams alone. Today’s exercise is a purchasing note for knitting or crochet. It assumes one colour, one strand, and no changes to your chosen size or the pattern’s construction. Projects with two strands held together or several colours need separate quantity checks; do not apply this example unchanged.
Find the length required for your chosen size
Read the materials section for the size you will make. If it gives only a number of balls of the specified yarn, check the manufacturer’s length per ball and multiply by that ball count. Do not use the figures for another size or compare metre and yard numbers directly. In this exercise, both lengths are in metres. If the required length is unknown, consult the designer’s or publisher’s information instead of guessing from grams alone. Do not subtract a presumed allowance from the original requirement without a basis for doing so.
Read the replacement’s length per ball
Record the metres per ball from the candidate yarn’s label or manufacturer’s product information. Balls of equal mass can have different lengths because fibre, thickness and yarn construction differ. “Both are 50 g” is not enough: check the length and its unit together. Also, yarn weight in an English description can mean a thickness category, which is separate from a ball’s mass in grams. Save the product name beside the per-ball information so that a similarly named yarn or a different package size does not enter your calculation.
Divide, then round up to whole balls
For an invented example, suppose you need 600 m and the replacement contains 140 m per ball. Dividing 600 by 140 gives about 4.29, so the basic estimate to cover that length is five balls. Four balls contain 560 m, leaving a 40 m shortfall; five contain 700 m. Round the incomplete ball up, rather than rounding to the nearest whole number and buying four. These are hypothetical figures, not a real product specification or a project’s measured consumption. The difference between 700 m and 600 m does not guarantee enough yarn for actual use, including swatching or changes.
Original explanatory diagram created by PocoPoco with AI assistance. This invented example represents noting a purchasing estimate. The yarn ball does not represent a required ball count, an actual product, yarn consumption, measured results, a stitch chart or an app screen. Check suitability separately from quantity
Matching the length does not ensure the same finished result. Do not decide from a thickness category or recommended tool size alone: swatch and check gauge under the conditions specified by the pattern. Compare fibre, yarn construction, fabric feel and care instructions too. Keep three fields in your note: required length, length per ball, and rounded-up ball count, with the size and product name you checked. Consider any allowance for swatching, finishing or planned changes separately, after checking what the original requirement includes. Rounding up addresses whole purchase units; it is not a universal rule for providing sufficient spare yarn.