How much yarn for a crochet shawl? Triangle, virus and more

The quick answer, by shawl size

Find the size nearest the shawl you want. Wingspan is the long top edge from tip to tip, and depth is the centre back, from the top edge to the point. The ranges come from the patterns in the next table, so they reflect real designs rather than a formula. If your pattern gives its own quantity, buy what the pattern says.

We’ve turned metres into balls of two common sizes: a 100g, 295m DK such as Stylecraft Special DK, and a 100g ball of about 400m in 4 ply or fingering. Use the column that matches the yarn you’re buying. If your yarn has a different length per ball, divide the metres by its own label figure and round up.

What 20 published shawls use

We opened each pattern page and noted the shape, the finished size and the yarn quantity. Where the designer gave balls or grams, we used the yarn maker’s metres per ball. Where the designer gave yards, we turned them into metres. Some designers, such as Jera’s Jamboree, Make It Crochet and Johanna Lindahl in her Lost in Time colour guide, give the amount actually used. Most others give what to buy in whole balls, so their figures run a little high.

We haven’t crocheted these shawls ourselves. The quantities are the designers’ own, and every pattern is linked at the bottom of this page. Sizes are the designers’ blocked measurements, rounded to the nearest centimetre where they were given in inches. Asymmetric and boomerang shawls are measured along their edges, so their sizes don’t compare directly with a triangle’s wingspan and depth.

Virus shawls and lacy shawls

Hobbii’s free Virus Shawl by Tine Sommer Hansen, which has more than 800 projects logged on Ravelry, is crocheted top-down in one 250g cake of Cotton Kings Sultan Deluxe, a fingering-weight cotton of 999m. The finished triangle is 180 × 85cm. That’s 131 metres per 1,000cm² of shawl, the highest of the 4 ply triangles in our table.

Hobbii’s Summer Night Shawl, by Morben Design, uses the same single cake of Sultan Deluxe but comes out at 250 × 116cm, because it’s an open lace pattern. That works out at 69 metres per 1,000cm², about half the virus figure. A lace shawl can be far bigger than a solid one from the same yarn, so don’t judge by size alone.

DK, 4 ply or aran

Jera’s Jamboree’s Selene shawl gives the cleanest comparison, because the same design was made at the same size, 150 × 65cm, in two weights. The DK sample used about 830 yards (759m), which was 220g. The aran sample used about 670 yards (613m), but that was 360g. Thicker yarn needs fewer metres for the same area, but each metre weighs more.

Across the symmetric triangles in our table, the 4 ply and fingering patterns ran from 109 to 131 metres per 1,000cm², leaving out the lacy Summer Night Shawl. The DK ones ran from 130 to 192. The top of the DK range is Catherine Crochets’ Maltings shawl, which builds a raised leaf border with overlay crochet. A 400m ball of 4 ply holds more than a 295m ball of DK, so the same length of yarn is often one ball fewer in 4 ply.

Prayer shawls and Sophie scarf sizes

Hooked on Homemade Happiness has two free crochet prayer shawls, both in worsted and both with quantities in grams only. The Cluster Prayer Shawl is a 58 × 135cm rectangle in 700g of worsted, and the Flower Petal Prayer Shawl is a triangle of 89 × 89 × 117cm in 300g. The rectangle has much more area to fill, and it takes more than twice the yarn.

The Sophie Scarf and Sophie Shawl are knitting patterns by PetiteKnit, worked in garter stitch, not crochet. We’ve listed their sizes for anyone planning a crochet shawl of a similar shape. The Sophie Scarf is small: 80cm or 102cm tip to tip, 11 or 13cm deep, from 92 to 128 metres of DK, so one 100g ball of DK covers either size. The Sophie Shawl comes in 170, 210 and 240cm lengths and takes 300 to 600 metres. A crochet copy at the same size may need a different amount, so swatch before you buy.

Turning a yarn advent calendar into a shawl

Many shawl patterns let you repeat rows until the yarn runs out, as Handy Little Me’s triangles do, which suits a box of mini skeins. Annie Design Crochet’s Sweet Chestnut boomerang shawl is written for six 20g mini skeins of about 73m each, 438m in total, at 170 × 122 × 107cm. That’s the same 20g mini most advent calendars use.

Our guide to yarn advent calendars 2026 UK found that the 24-mini sock and 4 ply calendars hold 1,752 to 2,040 metres. That’s more than any single 4 ply shawl in the table above, so one calendar could make a large triangle with minis to spare. A 24-day DK calendar of 20g minis at 225m per 100g holds 1,080m, which covers every DK pattern in our table, up to Catherine Crochets’ Maltings at 1,050m, with little to spare. Plan the colour order before you start, and keep the darkest or most-used shade for the edging.

Scale a pattern to your own size

To estimate a triangle that isn’t in the table, multiply wingspan by depth and halve it to get the area in cm². Divide by 1,000 and multiply by the metres per 1,000cm² for a similar stitch: around 110 to 130 for solid 4 ply, 130 to 190 for DK, and about 70 for open lace like the Summer Night Shawl. Say you want 170 × 80cm in a solid DK stitch at 150. The area is 6,800cm², so 6.8 × 150 = 1,020 metres, which is 4 balls of a 295m DK.

For a closer figure, crochet a 20 × 20cm swatch in your yarn, hook and stitch, block it, and weigh it. That swatch is 400cm², so multiply its weight by 2.5 to get grams per 1,000cm². Jera’s Jamboree notes that blocking opens up the stitches, so measure the swatch after blocking, as the designers measure their shawls. Then put the metres into the shopping planner to price the balls.

Common questions

Sources and scope

• www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/virus-shawl
• hobbii.co.uk/products/hp-1002262-virus-shawl-sultan-deluxe
• hobbii.co.uk/products/hp-1004195-summer-night-shawl
• www.ravelry.com/yarns/library/cotton-kings-sultan-deluxe
• www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lost-in-time
• mijocrochet.se/2017/03/15/lost-in-time-shawl/
• mijocrochet.se/2024/03/26/forever-stripes-shawl/
• www.handylittleme.com/diana-triangle-shawl-crochet-pattern/
• www.handylittleme.com/crochet-granny-triangle-shawl-pattern/
• www.handylittleme.com/crochet-triangle-shawl-pattern/
• catherinecrochets.com/starstruck-crochet-shawl/
• catherinecrochets.com/maltings-shawl/
• www.ravelry.com/yarns/library/hobbii-highland-wool
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/crochet-boomerang-shawl-mini-skeins-free-pattern/
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/beginner-triangle-crochet-shawl/
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/easy-crochet-triangle-shawl/
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/crochet-cake-yarn-shawl/
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/easy-crochet-shawlette-with-dk-yarn-free-pattern/
• www.anniedesigncrochet.com/crochet-granny-stripe-shawl/
• www.jerasjamboree.co.uk/free-triangle-shawl-crochet-pattern-selene/
• www.jerasjamboree.co.uk/shawl-crochet-pattern-georgiana/
• www.jerasjamboree.co.uk/crochet-asymmetrical-shawl/
• www.jerasjamboree.co.uk/crochet-shawl-pattern-lauren-shawl/
• makeitcrochet.com/easy-crochet-triangle-shawl-in-cake-yarn/
• makeitcrochet.com/crochet-triangle-shawl-the-right-wrap/
• www.hookedonhomemadehappiness.com/cluster-prayer-shawl-crochet-pattern/
• www.hookedonhomemadehappiness.com/flower-petal-prayer-shawl-crochet-pattern/
• www.hookedonhomemadehappiness.com/better-than-basic-granny-shawl-crochet-pattern/
• www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sophie-scarf-2
• www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sophie-shawl-2
• www.stylecraft-yarns.co.uk/yarns/special-dk/

Sources checked 1 October 2026. Label facts come from the linked references; worked purchase examples and arithmetic are our own illustrations.