Rank amateur crochet

Fiber & Textile Discussion and Questions
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Armed with little more than some yarn I fell in love with and an seemingly unending amount of time in yet another round of lockdown. (even when our region isn’t officially “locked down” it’s just easier to remain essentially locked down to prepare for the next half arsed lock down) I decided to start a blanket

I chain stitched until it felt wide enough. And started double crocheting. I’m down to my last three balls of yarn and seeing the end of the tunnel. I am thinking if like to finish this off with a couple rounds of simple single crochet as a border

My question for smart yarn people. Is how do I know how much yarn to hold back?
Does any one have a simple equation? My Internet searching has led me to weighing out oz and measuring yards and gauge charts and I think it’s left me more confused…

If there’s no simple hack I’ll just hold a ball (or half) back and go around as many times as I can.

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This will probably be no help :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I just guestimated, held back what looked like enough and carried on until I ran out or was finished on a round and was nearly out. I couldn’t work it out mathematically :exploding_head:

Part of my problem was not having ball bands so didn’t know yardage / metreage or weight

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I think you can estimate 3 times the length you need to work over as a ballpark. So, like if the piece was a 12" square you could guesstimate that you’d want 3x12" of yarn for each side… wait, maybe that’s knitting… hmmm… Well, I’m no help. :roll_eyes:
@MistressJennie @AIMR @bethntim any ideas?

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I’d say you should do a row of single crochet, then place a safety pin in your beginning and ending of the row, then pull it out. You can measure how much yarn it took to do that row, and use that info to extrapolate how much you’ll need to go around however many stitches.

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See, that’s the kind of response you really needed @sloth003!!

I’m a bit rubbish at “do, undo, redo”. It hurts my finishing ratio!! Hence I have so many UFO’s to work on. :scream:

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And that’s the low math solution I was searching for!

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Finally! A “measure once, work twice” solution that makes sense!

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To echo what mistress Jennie said, work one row, pull it out to the beginning, then measure
Good luck!

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I agree with this strategy. Sometimes I do a shorter length, though, to save time and extra work.

I totally recommend weighing the yarn, if you can.

Find out how much yarn you need for, say 12" (or the whole row if you go that route). Weigh that and multiply it by however long your border will be. I find it much less cumbersome than actually measuring yarn.

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