Chain Length Calculator
Skip the "how many chains for a blanket this wide" guesswork — enter your width, stitch, and gauge, and get the exact starting chain.
Why you chain more than your stitch count
A foundation chain has to cover both your working stitches and the "turning chain" — the extra chains at the start that stand in for the height of your first stitch, so Row 1 lines up correctly. Taller stitches need a taller turning chain: single crochet needs 1 extra chain, half double crochet needs 2, double crochet needs 3, and treble crochet needs 4. Skip this and you'll come up short on live stitches in Row 1 even though your chain count looked right on paper — this is the single most common reason a beginner's first row doesn't match the stitch count the pattern expects.
Does the turning chain count as a stitch?
Pattern-writing conventions genuinely differ here, which is part of why this trips people up. Many modern patterns treat the turning chain as not a working stitch (you skip it entirely when working back across on later rows), which is what this calculator assumes since it's the more foolproof, less error-prone convention for a beginner to follow consistently. Some patterns, especially older ones or in taller stitches like double crochet, do count the turning chain as the first stitch of the row instead — if your pattern explicitly says the turning chain counts as a stitch, subtract 1 from this calculator's result to match.
Checking your first row
After working Row 1, count your actual stitches before continuing — it's much faster to unravel one row than to discover a width problem after ten rows in. If you're consistently one or two stitches off from the target, that's a sign to adjust your own turning-chain habit (some crocheters chain 1 extra "just in case," which throws this exact math off) rather than a problem with the chain count itself.