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How to calculate yarn for a project (crochet or knit)
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Jun 15, 2025
In this video, I walk you through how to perfectly calculate yarn for your projects so you can mail order with confidence or buy your full project amount from the same dye lot in retail stores (or shop your stash!) See the written instructions here: https://livechilllife.com/crochet-and-knit/tutorials-and-reviews/how-to-calculate-yarn-for-your-knit-and-crochet-projects/ Subscribe to the newsletter for monthly discounts, tips and free patterns: https:livechilllife.com My books and project trackers: httpslivechilllife.comshop-my-books My vintage recipe cooking channel : httpswww.youtube.com@100yearoldrecipes My Etsy shop: https: livechilllife.etsy.com and https:www.etsy.comshopTinyCottageKitchen Social Media: Instagram: instagram.com/livechilllife TikTok: Livechilllife Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/people/Live-Chill-Life/61559059162110/
View Video Transcript
0:00
in this video I'm going to show you how
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to make yarn math your newest superpower
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Let's get started
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[Music]
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Now why would you need to know how to
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calculate how much yarn you need for a
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project
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you follow patterns all the time right
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no you do not
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Say for instance you want to shop your
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stash You want to pull out yarn you have
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at home You wonder how much you have
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exactly and what can you do with that
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maybe you saw a great stitch on
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Pinterest and you'd love to try it to
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make a blanket but you have no idea how
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much yarn you're going to need
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With the yarn calculation method I can
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show you exactly how much yarn you're
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going to need in a in a very close range
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anyway So you won't have a lot of
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leftovers or heaven forbid not by enough
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and you end up with an extra ske of yarn
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that you had to get to finish your
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project and it's from a different die
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lot So let's avoid all of that and I'll
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show you how easy it is Now there is
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some math involved but I'm going to
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handhold you through this I have the
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written instructions in a blog post but
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you can bookmark this for the future
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when you need it You may not need it
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right now but at some point in your
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knitting or crocheting life this will
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come up I remember when I was designing
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the Siren Song blanket This stitch is a
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yarn hog It is absolutely gorgeous But
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as I was working up a swatch to figure
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out gauge and I knew the size blanket I
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wanted to make Oh my goodness I was
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getting very nervous that I did not have
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enough yarn So I pulled out my standard
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method that I use I use this when I'm
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designing patterns and sizing so that I
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can give you a good range of how much
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yardage or meters you will need to make
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your project
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So I'm working up a swatch here and this
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is some yarn I reviewed recently the
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Premier
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um bamboo chunky So I'm using the size
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hook that I want for my drape for the
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stitch I'm using That's how you're going
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to do this So for instance if you're
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ordering online which this will be
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really helpful with Joan closing pull
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something from your stash I know you
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have some yarn laying around We all do
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to varying degrees
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And look online at the label All right
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Look for your yards
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compared to grams If you're not in the
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United States do your meters to your
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grams and compare that to a label on
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your yarn that you currently have Work
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up whatever kind of whatever kind of
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stitch
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you want And this will give you a pretty
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close neighborhood of
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how much you need to buy Okay so you
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don't need to actually have your yarn
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that you have your eye on to order it
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And another reason you want to order
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enough at once is for instance this yarn
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buy enough of the same dye lot to
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complete your project
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Otherwise it's going to be looking all
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crazy Not necessarily but it's possible
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The colors they just they can vary by
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die lot All right so I'm going to finish
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stitching up This is my I'm doing a 4x4
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You can do bigger
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Um and then I'm going to show you what
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we do after we do our swatch
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So you want to use your gram function
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for this I'm going tear it out to a zero
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Put my swatch on here
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Make sure that my edge is not
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adding weight So I've got nine grams
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going to write that down
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All right So I have my yarn weight which
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is 9 g So I'm going to write that down
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9
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g equals my 4
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by 4 in square
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So I need my square inches
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4x4 is 16 So I have 16 square inches
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And then from there
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going to look at a yarn label
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And this is where we figure out
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how many yards or meters are in a gram
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Don't worry about the ounce measurement
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Going to do
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going to say my label
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Sorry Writing on this pad There's a
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little bit of a lag
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to go a little more slowly
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Label equals
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100 g
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which equals 100
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31
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yards
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or
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20 meters
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Now when I'm writing patterns I'll do
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sometimes I'll do both
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just because I have some um makers that
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are not in the United States and I want
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to make sure that they're able to um
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figure this out just from looking at my
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instructions Now to calculate
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So from here I'm going to
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divide my swatch my 9 g
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So this will be your yarn swatch weight
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divided by
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my square inches which is here Came up
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with 16
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Okay Again your grams divided by your
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square inch of your swatch whatever size
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swatch you make
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Okay let me calculate
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that is
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56
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Now from here
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the project I'm working on
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is let's see I've got to calculate the
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sleeve
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which is
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19 in long one of the sizes by
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17 in
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circumference So it's a full sleeve
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And if I calculate that
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and then I want it's for two sleeves
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748
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square in
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and then my top
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4,160
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60
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Let's just write that off
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4,167
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square in
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Going to add these two together
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4,95
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All right So this is the total square
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inch of my project
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So now this number my square inches is
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multiplied here
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by my
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uh inches per g square in per gram So
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multiply this by
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56
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And that will give me
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27
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52
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4
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uh yards This is how many yards I will
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need So when I look on here and see that
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one ske has 131 yards I need a lot of
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skes for this Let me um
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calculate that So I'm going to divide
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this by 100
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31
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Right So I'm going to take my 200 or
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2752
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and divide that by
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the 131 yards Since I calculated yards
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for this particular one I didn't do the
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meters yet
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So there's 131 yards in the ske
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So I will need 21 SK of this yarn for
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this project that I'm making It's a big
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project
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That sounds about right
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So that's how you calculate for your
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project
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All right So let's say I want to make a
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blanket with this beautiful soft yarn
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using that same stitch
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So I've already done my calculation and
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I'm going to use blue
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uh ink for this one so that you can tell
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I'm working on a different project a
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calculation and I'm going to make a
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um 36
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It kind of looks a little not great
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36
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by oh 48 That's a standard size
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So to get my square footage for this I'm
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going to calculate 36 * 48
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and that is 1,78
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square in Right so we multiply these two
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numbers and that gets us our square
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inches
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So I have to divide
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or I'm sorry
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um multiply the 1728 the square inches
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times
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this number here
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So my yards per square inch calculation
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is this 0.56
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So I already did that
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Okay 1728
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is
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900
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68 yards needed to make this size
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blanket with this yarn
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So from there I'm going to go over to
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let's go over to the big calculator Okay
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And I'm going to put in that 968 yards
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that I need and divide that by how many
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yards are in this ske to let me know how
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many skes I will need to make the 36x
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48 in blanket So 968 divided by my yards
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Here we go I need just over seven skes
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of yarn And that calculation was without
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a border So I would probably just round
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up and get the eight skes maybe nine
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depending on you know how flashy of a
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border I want to make for the blanket
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If you found this helpful please give
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the video a like and consider
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subscribing if you haven't already If
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you have other questions or this is not
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clear to you please let me know in the
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comments I'd love to hear from you
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Thanks for watching