A Bit of Yarn Calculations

Vince and I were talking this morning about the yarn I ordered from Madelinetosh. He asked how long it will take me to use it. My thought was . . maybe I just bought it to collect it so . . who cares. But, I didn’t say that. I started looking at my usage in 2019.

So far this year, I’ve used 18,000 yards. That’s basically 3/4 of the year and 2,000 yards per month so that translates to 24,000 yards for the entire year if I continue as I’ve been going.

That definitely isn’t a very accurate assumption though because I’ve finished several UFO’s that I’ve finished this year and counted all the yardage in this year’s usage. Linho was started in September, 2017 and not much progress was made on it and then it was finished this year. Winterfell was started in 2018 and quite a bit of progress was made but it was finished this year. Addie’s unicorn sweater was started last year and should be finished this year.

On the other hand, there were several sweaters started this year that were finished this year – Comfort Fade Cardi, So Faded, Simple Summer Tweed Top Down Cardi, Easterly and Dash Jacket. Links to all of these are in the sidebar.

There are sweaters started this year that will hopefully be finished this year – the gray Simple Summer Tweed Top Down Cardi, Skogajfall and maybe All of the Lights. Sweaters were started this year that won’t be finished this year – Tegna, Persistence is the Key, Tabouli.

I count the yardage when the project is finished so it till never truly be exact, depending on how you look at it. I’ve probably finished more UFOs this year than in other year of knitting. A rough estimate . . I’m happy with that.

What I have finished this year:

7 pairs of socks
9 sweaters
5 shawls/scarves
1 hat
1 lap blanket
1 felted bag
1 doll dress

I’ll do a more accurate list at the end of the year.

Of the sweaters, there were:

• 2 worsted weight
• 4 dk weight (including the doll and girl’s sweaters
• 1 sport weight
• 2 fingering weight

Thinking about 24,000 yards of yarn, with there being about 200 yards on a skein of worsted weight, 225 yards on most of the DK weight yarns I like; 270 on the sport weight and 400 on the fingering weight, that 24,000 yards could translate to about 120 skeins of worsted weight or 60 skeins of fingering weight yarn. Chances are, there will never be a year when I use only a single weight of yarn . . like I wouldn’t knit all fingering weight sweaters, nor would I knit all worsted weight sweaters . . but I suppose anything is possible.

This year, there was a pretty good balance. Take out the doll sweater but leave the little girl’s sweater in there and I made two worsted weight sweaters, but All of the lights is another worsted weight sweater and I hope to finish it this year. Add in the Blue Sand that’s DK that I hope to finish since I only have sleeves to add, that puts me back to four DK weight sweaters. I doubt I do any additional sport or fingering weight sweaters. Those numbers pretty much sum up my feelings for sweater knitting. DK yarn is my favorite sweater yarn, followed by worsted. I knit a fair amount of fingering weight sweaters because there are a lot of pretty fingering weight patterns. I have very little sport weight yarn in my stash.

To stay on track, I should use 2,000 yards per month but I could start five sweaters and finish nothing in January and then in March, finish all five sweaters and that would make March’s totals look like I’d used about 7,500 yards so you see the fallacy of this accounting method but again, it’s close enough that it makes me happy.

From this little summary of my 2019 knitting to day, I think it’s safe to say I will use, on average, 90 – 100 skeins of yarn per year, if all things remain the same.

Hand/arthritis issues could slow the knitting down a bit. A move could slow the moving down a lot.

I am going to track the skeins, as well as yards, that I use next year. It doesn’t matter. I have no goals. I really don’t care how much I use but I think it’s interesting to know and, based on how much I used this year, it gives me hope that I can make a dent in all this yarn and maybe not leave behind as much as I had thought. Also, that total “use more than I thought” theory is out the window if I don’t stop buying yarn. Had it not been for this Madelinetosh sale, I would have been pretty impressed with my lack of buying this year and at 40% off, more on some, I am not beating myself up about what I ordered from them. With a sale this crazy, it’s also quite possible that when they sort things out, there may well be some cancellations due to lack of stock. I understand how that can happen – I’ll be happy to get what I get.

Just a little something to think about . .