Craft and Sewing Calculators
3 tools, free and without ads.
Three calculators for the maths that happens before any making does: how much material, cut how, and distributed how evenly. Get it wrong and you find out halfway through, when the dye lot has sold out.
This is estimating with an asymmetric cost. Buying slightly too much wastes a little money; buying too little can end a project, because matching a colour later is often impossible.
Every tool in Crafts
Backing, batting, binding, borders, sashing and cut sizes for quilt shapes — six calculators in one, in inches and yards.
Spread increases or decreases evenly across a knitting or crochet row, written out as an instruction with both stitch counts checked.
How much yarn a knitting or crochet project needs, from your own gauge — plus skeins to buy, yarn substitution and foundation chains.
Why craft estimates need a margin
Quilt Calculator — works out yardage and cutting for a quilt from its finished dimensions. Fabric width varies, and so does what is usable after the selvedge, so confirm the width of the bolt you are actually buying rather than the nominal one.
Yarn Calculator — estimates quantity for a project. Yardage per ball is the figure that matters, not weight — two balls of the same stated weight in different fibres can differ substantially in length.
Stitch Distribution Calculator — spreads increases or decreases evenly across a row, which is the calculation most likely to be done wrong by eye and most visible when it is.
Three things these cannot know, and all of them shift the answer: your gauge, which is why a swatch is worth the time it costs; your seam allowance, which compounds across every seam in a piece; and shrinkage, if you pre-wash. Add a margin over any estimate here, and buy it in the same dye lot while it exists.
Related categories
- Free Online Calculators — Cut layouts, fabric and unit conversion — the general-purpose estimating set.
- Design and Colour Tools — Colour palettes, for choosing a scheme before you commit to the yarn.
- Cooking and Kitchen Tools — Recipe scaling, the same proportional arithmetic on a different material.