How to Figure the Amount of Wool Needed for a Hooked Rug

Basic Math for Rug Hooking

• 1

  Calculate the total area of the rug by multiplying the width by the length.
  For example, imagine a rectangular rug measuring 36 inches wide by 24 inches long. The design is a sitting dog in the center of the rug with a striped background.
  The imaginary rug has a total area of 864 square inches. Hooked rugs are often made with old clothes. Calculating in square inches, instead of yardage, makes it easier to measure odd shapes such as shirt and pants.

• 2

  Multiply the total area (864 square inches) by 5 to find the amount of wool needed for the rug's background. This multiplication takes into account the number of fabric strips needed for rug hooking. Most hooking strips are 1/4 inch wide or less. Our imaginary rug requires 4,320 square inches of wool. Convert this number into feet by dividing the figure by 144 inches. The total comes to 30 square feet.

• 3

  Pull out your design. Use either the background fabric with the actual outlined design or a piece of paper with the design and measurements. Our pretend rug has a sitting dog in the center. Assign the dog the shape of a rectangle, circle or triangle. A sitting dog most closely resembles a triangular shape.

• 4

  Use the pencil and yardstick and draw a triangle on the rug's base fabric, or paper, in the spot where the dog will sit. Make the triangle large enough to hold the entire dog. Our imaginary dog design has a base equaling 10 inches and a vertical height of 30 inches. Find the area of a triangle by multiplying the base times the height/2. The dog's total area is 150 square inches (10 multiplied by 30/2). Convert the triangle's area from square inches to feet by dividing 150 by 144 giving us approximately 1 square foot. Then multiply the 1 square foot by 5 to find the total amount of wool required for our sitting dog. Five feet of wool are needed for the dog.

• 5

  Subtract the dog's 5 feet of wool from the 30 feet total needed for the entire rug (calculated back at Step 2). The total amount of wool now needed for the background, surrounding the dog, equals 25 feet. Because the imaginary rug has a striped background, divide 25 in half. The background wool requires 12 1/2 feet of one color fabric and 12 1/2 feet of another.

• 6

  Find the total area for any design on your rug using basic math. Dust off your kid's math books if you need help. A circle's area, for instance, is measured by multiplying Pi (3.14) by the circle's radius squared. Star shapes are a bit more difficult because stars can vary. Draw a circle around the star, to make it easier, and figure out the circle's area.