I found this lovely vintage pattern for a baby’s shawl and it says it requires 7 ounces of wool. I have worked out that this is 200g - is this enough wool? I want to do it in cream and am finding it hard to get the wool locally so want to make sure that I have the right amount of the same dye number. Any advice?
Which pattern are you making? Can you give us a link to it or a pattern name?
At one time everyone must have understood the weight and amount of yarn to buy but now we have to look at things like gauge and pattern to guess at the amounts.
Does your pattern specify a gauge or tension?
Lovely!
This looks like the same pattern on Ravelry now called Fleecy.
You can click on 'projects" on the right to see the yarns and yardage that others have used. Looks like about 2000yds give or take. You can also click on the tab in the upper portion of the page to see a compilation of different yarns used in the projects.
The Rav page also has a link to a version of the pattern with charts, if that helps
http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/baby/fleecy.html
Here is a web site that might help
Hi Tangles64 - thank you so much really helpful and the skein conversion is a boon too. I have booked mark it so I can go back in the future. Much appreciation
Hi there - Thank you. I have downloaded the pattern with the charts - really helpful. It says to buy 7 balls of
Patons Beehive Lady Betty, 3-Ply but I think this is a vintage Australian wool and there is no weight given in the pattern. Do I buy 7x 50gm balls of modern 3ply? Does this equate to 2000 yards. Not sure how to convert yards to gms 
Much appreciation
Ann
Your very welcome 
This site give an approximate equivalence for grams to yards for various weights of yarn.
For light fingering, I’d go with the yards for fingering, 230yds/50grams (1600yds/7balls) and add maybe 2 more (about 2000yds/9balls). That’s also taking into account the fact that some of the projects on Ravelry mention using about 2000yds Better a couple of extra balls of yarn than too few especially if you’re ordering online.
Great - so helpful - thanks you