Do bobble and puff stitches use more yarn?

The short answer, from patterns in the same yarn

Yarnspirations publishes many free Bernat blanket patterns in Bernat Blanket, a super chunky yarn with 201m in each 300g ball. Most of the ones we used are worked on an 8mm hook to a tension of 7 stitches and 8 rows to 10cm in double crochet (US single crochet), and most state the metres needed. That makes a fair test, though a small one. Two blankets worked entirely in double crochet came out at 670 and 720 metres per square metre, an average of 695.

Bobble Chevron Striped and Bobble Frame work single long stitches on wrong-side rows of double crochet, so they push out as bobbles on the right side. They needed 760 and 740 metres per square metre. The Ending with a Bobble pillow, made the same way, needed 720. That is 4 to 10% more than the plain average. With only two plain blankets to compare against, the difference could be anything from nothing to 14%, depending on which one you take.

Texture over the whole fabric costs far more. Study of Puff Dessert, designed by Michael Sellick of The Crochet Crowd, is covered in cables and raised trebles (US post double crochet) with a popcorn here and there, and needed 1,170, or 68% more. The popcorns are a small part of each row, so most of that extra probably comes from the raised stitches. Crochetdreamz’s puff stitch blanket is by a different designer, uses Bernat Blanket and Bernat Baby Blanket on a 10mm hook rather than 8mm, and gives its quantity in half balls. It needed 1,150, which is 66% more than the plain Bernat average.

Some textured patterns cost nothing extra. The Diamond Popcorn blanket spaces its popcorns out in diamonds and came out at 670, slightly below the plain average. The Strawberry Bobble blanket, which uses clusters on a half treble (US half double crochet) base at a different tension, was also 670. Patchwork Stripes, worked in moss stitch, needed only 490, close to The Crochet Crowd’s moss stitch blanket in Bernat Blanket, which works out at about 440 in our moss stitch guide.

Bobble, puff, popcorn and cluster: what’s the difference

All four stack several stitches’ worth of yarn into one place. They differ in how the loops are finished. These descriptions use UK terms, with US names in brackets.

A bobble is several trebles (US double crochet) worked into the same stitch, each stopped one step short, then closed together at the top. It is usually worked on a wrong-side row so it pushes out on the right side. A puff is made from long loops pulled up in one stitch, like unfinished half trebles (US half double crochet), and all drawn through at once. It has no finished stitches inside. A popcorn is several complete trebles in one stitch, closed by taking the hook out and pulling the last loop through the first treble. Cluster is the broad name for part-made stitches closed together. Dora Does works hers into one stitch, while Bernat’s Strawberry Bobble blanket spreads each cluster across four stitches. Waffle stitch is a grid of raised trebles (US post double crochet) worked around the stitches of the row below.

Dora Does crocheted a swatch of each of the four bobble types with the same pattern so they can be compared side by side. Sarah Maker swatched a 5-stitch puff, bobble and popcorn. She calls all three yarn-eaters, and says the puff uses the least yarn and the popcorn the most.

Pattern names don’t always follow these definitions, so read the stitch key. Yarnspirations’ Red Heart Bobble Scarf and Bernat Color Block Bobble Scarf both make their bobbles the popcorn way. The Bernat Bobble Frame and Bobble Chevron blankets make each bobble from a single double treble (US treble) worked on a wrong-side row. Study of Puff Dessert has no puff stitches at all: its texture comes from cables, raised trebles and popcorns.

Why one bobble costs more than the fabric shows

Sarah Maker estimates that each bobble uses three to five times the yarn of a single treble (US double crochet), and each puff three to five times the yarn of a half treble (US half double crochet). Dora Does calls puff stitch “quite the yarn eater”. That is true stitch by stitch, but a blanket with one bobble every few stitches is still mostly plain fabric.

That is why scattered bobbles added no more than 10% to the plain average in the Bernat blankets, while the two blankets textured all over needed about two thirds more. Before you buy, count how often the textured stitch comes in your pattern. A bobble on every other stitch of every other row is a different budget from a few rows of bobbles across a plain blanket.

Across designers, the stitch matters less than the design

When we compared patterns from different designers and yarns, most of the textured ones landed inside the ranges in our other guides. The four DK and light bobble and puff patterns came out at 1,250 to 2,120 metres per square metre. Our blanket guide found 1,780 to 2,530 for DK blankets, and our cushion guide found 1,500 to 2,250 for DK cushions. In aran and worsted, Caron’s Zig-Zag Puff, which sets its puffs into chain spaces, came out at 1,340 and Daisy Farm Crafts’ Gold Puffs at 1,550. The aran blankets in our blanket guide, in moss stitch, granny squares and waves, used 1,110 to 1,570.

Waffle stitch sat higher. Bernat’s Waffle Crochet Blanket in Bernat Lattice needed 2,330 metres, or about 1,440g, per square metre, including its fringe. By weight, the other aran and worsted textured patterns here came out at 510 to 960g per square metre, and the aran and worsted moss blankets in our moss stitch guide at 564 to 996g. With one to three patterns in each group, treat these as pointers, not rules. A difference of a few hundred metres per square metre between two designers can come from hook size, tension and border as easily as from the stitch.

Where the numbers come from

We opened each pattern page or its PDF and noted the finished size and the yarn quantity. Then we divided the metres by the crocheted area to get metres per square metre, and used the ball band weight to get grams per square metre. Where a pattern gives sizes in inches or yards, we converted them. For cushions made the same on both sides we counted both sides. Ripple and chevron blankets were measured as rectangles.

Most quantities are what the designer tells you to buy, often rounded up to whole balls, so they lean high. Where Yarnspirations gives metres as well as balls we used the metres, which are closer to what was used. HanJan Crochet gives an approximate amount used for its blanket. Seven patterns, one of the two plain blankets among them, measure the blanket or scarf without its fringe or tassels but include that yarn in the quantity, so they also lean high. We haven’t crocheted these patterns ourselves. The quantities are the designers’ own, and each pattern is linked at the bottom of the page. We left out hats, because a hat pattern gives a head size rather than an area of fabric.

How to budget for a textured blanket

Start with the plain version. Our blanket guide and cushion guide give ball counts by size for plain and granny stitches. Then add about 10% if single bobbles or puffs are scattered through plain rows. If the texture covers the whole fabric, the two examples we found needed about two thirds more, so allow up to 70% and check with a swatch. Put the result into the yarn budget calculator to turn it into balls and a price.

A weighed swatch is more reliable than either. Crochet a 20cm square in the stitch pattern, with the bobbles at the same spacing as your pattern, and weigh it. Multiply the weight by 25 to get grams per square metre, then multiply by the blanket’s area. If your swatch weighs 45g, that is 1,125g per square metre, and a 120 × 150cm blanket covers 1.8 square metres, so you need about 2,025g before the border.

Scarves: whole balls make the figures jump

The two popcorn scarves show how buying in whole balls inflates small projects. Red Heart’s Bobble Scarf asks for seven 100g balls for a 21.5 × 155cm scarf, which works out at 3,520 metres per square metre on paper. Bernat’s Color Block Bobble Scarf uses three colours in 11 balls of Bernat Roving. If you’re making a striped or colour-block scarf, add up the metres you need in each colour and round each one up to whole balls on its own.

Common questions

Sources and scope

• sarahmaker.com/puff-bobble-popcorn/
• sarahmaker.com/crochet-bobble-stitch/
• sarahmaker.com/crochet-puff-stitch/
• doradoes.co.uk/2019/07/27/whats-the-difference-between-the-crochet-bobble-stitch-puff-stitch-popcorn-and-cluster-stitches/
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-geometric-intersection-striped-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-layers-of-stripes-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-patchwork-stripes-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-bobble-chevron-striped-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-bobble-frame-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-ending-with-a-bobble-crochet-pillow-set
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-crochet-strawberry-bobble-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-study-of-puff-dessert-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-blanket-speckle-crochet-diamond-popcorn-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-pixel-prism-crochet-waffle-stitch-throw
• crochetdreamz.com/crochet-puff-stitch-blanket/
• daisyfarmcrafts.com/crochet-gold-puffs-baby-blanket/
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/caron-popcorn-blooms-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-waffle-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/patons-bobble-licious-pillow
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/red-heart-crochet-bobble-scarf
• www.hanjancrochet.com/bobble-stitch-crochet-blanket/
• www.hanjancrochet.com/diamond-bobble-cushions-free-crochet-pattern/
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-rippled-puff-stitch-crochet-blanket
• daisyfarmcrafts.com/crochet-windowpane-puff-baby-blanket/
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/caron-zig-zag-puff-stitch-crochet-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-crochet-pops-of-puffs-blanket
• www.yarnspirations.com/products/bernat-crochet-color-block-bobble-scarf

Sources checked 2 October 2026. Label facts come from the linked references; worked purchase examples and arithmetic are our own illustrations.