The Journal / Materials
How much yarn a cabled sweater actually takes
Cables eat about a third more yarn than the same sweater in stocking stitch, which is why so many pattern estimates run short. Here is the arithmetic, and how to check it before you commit.
The most common way to run out of wool is to trust a pattern written for a different body than yours, in a yarn that was not quite this yarn, by someone who knits at a different gauge.
The second most common way is to forget that cables pull in.
Why cables cost more
A cable is a piece of fabric folded over itself. Every crossing takes stitches that were sitting flat and stacks them, which means a cabled panel needs more stitches to cover the same width — and stitches are yarn.
A rough rule that has held up across a lot of projects: a densely cabled sweater takes 30 to 40 per cent more yarn than the same sweater in plain stocking stitch. An allover Aran pattern, the sort where there is no plain fabric anywhere, can reach 50 per cent.
Most patterns account for this. The problem is the ones that quote a range — "1300–1530 yards" — where the top of the range assumes you knit at exactly the stated gauge and are making the second-smallest size.
The numbers, roughly
For a worsted-weight sweater at 22 stitches to 4 inches, plain stocking stitch, a good starting point:
| Chest | Plain | Cabled |
|---|---|---|
| 36 in | 1100 yd | 1480 yd |
| 40 in | 1260 yd | 1700 yd |
| 44 in | 1420 yd | 1915 yd |
| 48 in | 1590 yd | 2130 yd |
Treat these as the floor, not the answer. Longer body, longer sleeves, a deep ribbed hem, or a shawl collar each add 110 to 165 yards.
At 220 yards to a 3.5 oz skein, a 44 inch cabled sweater is nine skeins. Buy ten.
How to get your own number
Swatching for gauge is standard advice. Swatching for quantity is not, and it is the more useful measurement.
- Weigh your yarn before you start. A kitchen scale that reads to a tenth of an ounce is fine.
- Knit a swatch in the actual cable pattern — not stocking stitch — at least 6 inches square. Wash and dry it exactly as you will wash the finished sweater.
- Weigh the swatch. Measure it.
- Work out grams per square inch, then multiply by the total area of the pattern pieces.
Getting the area is less painful than it sounds. Treat the front and back as rectangles, each sleeve as a rectangle at its widest point, and add 15 per cent. The shaping you lose at the armholes roughly cancels the yarn you gain in the ribbing.
Add another 10 per cent on top for the swatch itself, sewing up, and the fact that the last skein always feels shorter than the others.
On dye lots
Small-batch wool is dyed in lots of a few kilograms, and two skeins from different months will not match exactly. This is not a defect. It is what happens when the dyeing is done in a pot rather than a vat.
It does mean two things. Buy the whole quantity at once. And if you are worried about a visible break, alternate between two skeins every two rows for the first four inches of the body — the transition becomes invisible and you stop having to think about it.
When you run short anyway
Which happens. Options, in order of how well they usually turn out:
Shorten the sleeves. Nobody notices a sleeve that finishes at the wrist bone instead of over it, and you will not notice either after the second wearing.
Make the cuffs, hem and neckband a contrast color. Done deliberately from the start this reads as a design choice. Done in a panic at the end it reads as a panic.
Order more and accept the dye lot. Put the new lot in the sleeves, both of them, rather than trying to blend it into the body. A pair of slightly different sleeves looks intentional. One different sleeve does not.