Floss shopping lists & dye lots
Add up what every planned project needs, subtract what you own, and buy whole skeins of the difference. Then add spares where running out would hurt.
How Skein Tally builds the list
- For each active project (planned, kitting up or in progress, with "include" ticked), it estimates each colour's need. If you entered skeins listed by the pattern, it uses those instead.
- It adds up the need for the same brand + number across projects, before rounding. So 0.4 + 0.4 of one colour becomes one skein, not two.
- It subtracts your stash (partial skeins included) and rounds the rest up to whole skeins.
Each project's colour table also shows whether that project is covered. Stash is allocated to projects in list order, so the first project gets first claim.
Dye lots and spares
Dyed thread can differ slightly from batch to batch. It shows most on large areas of one colour such as backgrounds, and on hand-dyed or variegated threads, where makers often warn that skeins differ. General advice, not a guarantee: buy all the skeins for a big background colour at once, and add a spare for colours close to the next whole skein.
Converting between brands
If you want to substitute another brand, see why conversions are approximate, and check real skeins side by side before buying many.
Sources
- Threaded, "Cross stitch floss calculator: skeins per color, strands and dye lots" (rounding per colour, spares near skein boundaries).
- Yarn & Row, "How far does one skein go?" (buy a spare of main colours).