Tapestry Yarn Calculator

Tapestry weaving flips the usual yarn-quantity math on its head because it's weft-faced: the weft completely covers the warp, so almost all the visible yarn and nearly all the yardage calculation is about weft, not warp. Warp here plays only a structural role — usually cotton seine twine at a comparatively low sett — so its yardage is simple end count times length plus loom waste. Weft is where the real budgeting happens: this calculator multiplies total picks (design height times PPI) by an effective travel distance per pick that's 1.5 times the tapestry width, reflecting how the weft doesn't travel a straight line but packs tightly around and interlaces with every single warp end, adding roughly 50% extra length beyond a straight pass.

That total weft yardage is then divided evenly across your specified number of colors as a simplified average — real designs rarely split colors evenly, so treat "yarn per color" as a starting estimate to refine once you know your actual color-area proportions from the cartoon. Detail level shows up through PPI: a higher picks-per-inch count means finer, more detailed imagery, but also proportionally more weft and more time, which the calculator reflects in its estimated-hours figure — scaled directly off your PPI relative to a baseline of 20 — as a rough planning aid rather than a precise labor estimate, since actual weaving speed varies enormously by weaver skill and design complexity. The howToUse guidance to buy at least 10% extra per color is worth heeding literally, since the even-split assumption and the fixed 50%-extra-per-pick travel estimate are both simplifications that can run low on the color you use most.