Scrap Yarn Project Finder

Enter the leftovers you actually have and this compares them against published project requirements for that yarn weight. It answers twice, because a pile of oddments answers two different questions: what you could make using every colour, and what you could make if the project has to be one colour throughout. Those are rarely the same list.

What will your leftovers reach?

Measure or weigh each partial ball first — the remaining yarn calculator turns a weight into a length if you do not know it.

1. What you have

Your leftovers One number per partial ball, comma separated. Keep them separate — the separation is what makes the second answer possible.

Unit Published figures are in yards; metres are converted for you.

Yarn weight From the ball band. Reading yarn labels covers where to find it.

2. How you would use it

Colour Both answers are shown whichever you pick; this only decides which is highlighted.

Yarn to hold back Kept aside for swatching, seaming or repairs. There is no default here; the figure is yours.

Why a pile of leftovers gets two answers

Adding your oddments together gives a total, and a total is the right number only if the project can use every colour in the pile. A striped blanket, a granny-square throw, a scrappy shawl — those really do have all of it available.

A single-colour project does not. It is limited by the largest single ball, and no amount of other yarn changes that. Four balls of 320 yards is not one ball of 1280 yards.

Take the example the tool opens with: 320, 180, 95, 60 yards of medium weight yarn. Combined that is 655 yards and reaches 4 of the project types listed for that weight. Restricted to one colour it is 320 yards and reaches 3 — the shawl drops off the list.

A diagram comparing two ways of counting four partial balls of medium weight crochet yarn measuring 320, 180, 95, 60 yards. Drawn to scale they total 655 yards while the largest single ball is 320 yards. Combined, 655 yards reaches Hat, Shawl, Scarf, Socks (a pair). Limited to one colour, 320 yards reaches Hat, Scarf, Socks (a pair). Adding leftovers together only answers the question if the project can be striped or scrappy. — The same yarn, counted twice. Only one of these answers a single-colour project.

This is the whole reason the tool asks for your balls separately rather than for a total. A total cannot be un-added.

Where these figures come from

The ranges are published by Lion Brand Yarn and were checked on 2026-08-15. They are manufacturer guidance, not a standard: no craft body publishes project yardages, and the Craft Yarn Council’s standards cover yarn weights, gauge, hooks, body measurements and symbols instead.

49 project-and-weight combinations are listed here, and 14 of them carry a disagreement the publisher has with itself — its two pages transpose the scarf and sock rows. Those are marked in the results rather than quietly resolved. The yarn amount chart sets all of it out in full, with the sources and the argument.

The single most important limitation: no finished size is stated for any of these projects. A published “shawl” might be a shoulder-width triangle or a wingspan wrap. So “reaches” here means the arithmetic reaches, and nothing more.

The lowest published figure in each yarn weight, which is the least yarn that reaches any project in this reference
Yarn weight	Smallest project listed	Its published range	Projects listed
Super Fine (fingering, sock)	Hat	250–325 yd	7
Fine (sport)	Hat	250–325 yd	7
Light (DK)	Hat	200–250 yd	7
Medium (worsted, aran)	Hat	200–225 yd	7
Bulky (chunky)	Hat	125–200 yd	7
Super Bulky	Hat	125–150 yd	7
Jumbo	Hat	30–60 yd	7

The lowest published figure in each weight, taken from the same reference. Below that figure this tool has nothing to offer — which does not mean nothing can be made, only that this reference does not list it.

Holding some back

Spending your last yard is a bad plan for the same reason as spending your last pound: the estimate might be wrong, the seams take more than you expected, and a repair later needs matching yarn that no longer exists in that dye lot.

How much to keep is your call, and this page will not pick a figure. What it will do is show what the choice costs. Options do not fade gradually as the reserve grows; they disappear one at a time, at the moment your usable total crosses a project’s lower published figure.

A step chart of how many crochet project types a 655-yard pile of medium weight leftovers still reaches as more yarn is held back in reserve, from zero to 400 yards. The count falls in single steps rather than gradually, dropping one project at a time at the point where the reserve crosses that project's lower published figure. — Each step is one project leaving the list. Nothing changes in between.

The practical use of that shape is knowing where you are on it. If you are ten yards above a step you have no margin at all; if you are a hundred above the next one, you can hold back generously and lose nothing.

What to do when nothing reaches

Small amounts are the normal case for leftovers, and a short list is not a verdict. The reference here starts at 30 yards, which is a real floor for the project types it happens to name — not a floor on crochet.

Genuinely small oddments still make things this reference does not list: squares for a future blanket, bunting, coasters, stuffed toys, flowers, edgings on something else, stripes in a larger project. None of those have published yardages to compare against, so the honest answer is that the tool cannot help and a scale can: work a square, weigh it, and you know exactly how many that amount of yarn makes.

The other honest answer is to stop treating oddments as a problem to solve today. A bag of squares built over a year is a blanket; the same yarn assessed ball-by-ball is nothing.

Combining leftovers that were never meant to match

The arithmetic says a pile can be added up. Whether the result looks like anything is a different question, and one worth thinking about before you start:

Weight matters more than colour. Mixing a DK with a worsted in the same fabric changes gauge and drape mid-project. This tool filters by weight for that reason. Substituting yarn covers what is actually interchangeable.
Fibre matters at washing time. A blanket of mixed acrylic and wool has no single safe wash setting, and finding that out afterwards is expensive.
Dye lots do not matter when the design is deliberately scrappy, and matter enormously when it is not. That is the single-colour question again, in another form.
Quantity decides the design. A pile with one dominant colour and several small ones wants a different layout from six equal amounts. The stripe calculator works out how far a set of colours goes in a striped piece.

Direct answers.

What can I make with leftover yarn? It depends on whether the project may use every colour. Enter your balls separately above and this compares your total and your largest single ball against published requirements for that yarn weight, listing both.

Can I just add my leftovers together? Only for a project that can be striped or scrappy. A single-colour project is limited by your largest ball no matter how much other yarn sits beside it.

How much yarn do I need for a scrap blanket? There is no published figure for “scrap blanket” specifically. The listed blanket and afghan ranges are the nearest comparison, and they state no finished size, so treat them as an order of magnitude and measure a square instead.

Should I keep some yarn back? That is your decision, and the tool shows what any given reserve costs you in options rather than suggesting a number.

Why do the scarf and socks rows disagree? Because the publisher’s own two pages transpose them. Both figures are shown and neither is chosen; the chart entry for those two rows sets out the evidence.

My yarn is below everything listed. Is it useless? No. It is below the smallest project this particular reference names, which is a limitation of the reference. Squares, bunting, coasters, toys and edgings all live under that floor and none of them have published yardages.

Remaining Yarn Calculator — how much is actually left in a partial ball, by weight, before you can use this at all.
Crochet Yarn Amount Chart by Project — the same reference set out in full, with its sources and its disagreements.
Stripe Yarn Calculator — once you know the project is scrappy, how far each colour goes.
How to Read Yarn Labels — finding the weight category this tool filters by.
Yarn Substitution Calculator — whether two leftovers can share a fabric.

Methodology and limits

The comparison is arithmetic and nothing else. Your usable amount is the total of the balls you entered, or the largest of them for a single-colour project, less any reserve. A project is reported as reached when that amount is at or above the bottom of its published range, and marked as clearing it when the amount is at or above the top.

The reference data lives in one place and is shared with the published-figures reference; the table this tool runs on is generated from that same source at build time rather than copied, and an automated check compares the two over 4,080 cases so the chart and the tool cannot come to disagree. Metres are converted at 0.9144 metres to the yard, which is a definition rather than an approximation.

Three limits, stated plainly. The published ranges carry no finished size, no gauge and no stitch pattern, so two makers of the same category can land far apart. The list of project types is the publisher’s, not a survey of what crocheters make, and it omits most of what leftovers are actually good for. And nothing here accounts for how the yarn looks together — the arithmetic cannot see colour.

No project is recommended, ranked or described as suited to your yarn. The tool reports which published ranges your amount reaches and leaves the choice where it belongs.