I have had an eye on this lace shawl for a long time. All it says is to use a 100g laceweight yarn and 3.25 needles.
Ok I am fine with the needles, but it is the 100g that is the problem the yarn I want to use is 50g skein from knitpicks. So can someone explain in baby term the difference between 50g and 100g.
Not in any hurry I will be doing a knit a long sometime in July.
Thanks to anyone how can help me. Then I can keep that information in my note book.
Teri
I think the difference in 50 g and laceweight and 100 g of laceweight is that you will get twice the yardage in the 100 g ball. You need to look up the yarn the pattern calls for and see the yardage on the band and then buy enough knitpicks yarn to do your project.
Like [B]bebedechocolate[/B] said, you need to check the yardage of the original yarn. I will give you an example from the shawl I’m getting ready to knit:
I’m going to knit Woodland Shawl. It calls for 1 skein Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch ([B]100[/B] grams, [B]460[/B] yards). So I know that 100 grams of this particular yarn has 460 yards.
I’m using Knit Picks Palette. Each ball of Palette is [B]50[/B] grams and [B]231[/B] yards. So I will need to but 2 balls to equal 100 grams and 462 yards. I bought 2 extra though, because they are cheap, I like the color, and I’m paranoid of running out!
Hope that helps.
Answer: 50g:) . So here’s how it works. The “g” stands for grams. 100g are about 3.5 oz. So you would need 2 of the 50g skeins to equal the 100g you need. BUT. . .it depends on the yardage. In order for your project to come out right, you need to have be using the same weight of yarn. If you need 100g that give you 700 yds, and you want to substitute that with 2 skeins of 50g that get 200 yds each, that’s going to be a problem, because then you’ll get 400 yds of yarn for your 100g-- and that will be a much thicker yarn (the thinner the yarn, the more yards you get per gram or ounce). So it’s fine to use 2 of the Knitpicks, as long as the yardage is roughly the same. What yarn does the pattern call for, and what is the yarn from Knitpicks?
The short summary - choose your yarn by yardage, rather than number of balls, even if the weights come out equal (2 50g vs 1 100g)
What she said…but also keep in mind that the needle size may change depending upon the gauge you feel looks best – do they give a gauge? Many lace shawls and scarves don’t, but every yarn has a range of gauges that look best due to the particular yarn’s characteristics.
Thanks everyone for all the answers to my question.
So the shawl is the Wildflower Shawl the pattern is really easy for a lace shawl goes. All it says for the material is 100g lace weight yarn.
The thing is it doesn’t have the yardage for the 100g oh well now that I know the difference now I will get what I think I will need.
I am going to buy the Gloss lace weight in Malachite, I love that green. It is a 50g/440 yards I am going to get at least 4 skeins of it. I just love the yarn and color.
So again thanks everyone for the answers I needed.
Can you look up the yarn used in the pattern and see how many yards that is?
I just looked it up on ravelry, and it calls for 700-800 yds, so you’d only need 2 skeins. Of course you can use the other 2 for another project… 
grrrr, that was gonna be my answer 
It was my first thought too…
Ah yes two will do but dh doesn’t know that. We shall all keep this a secret. 
If you have the budget I’d go ahead and buy 3 skeins even if the pattern only says 2. I say this because I just substituted a laceweight yarn for a pattern without a written gague and even though I bought enough yardage for the pattern, and knit on the size needle reccommended, I just realized that I don’t have enough yarn to finish as I guess I’m knitting at a looser gague than the designer. Better safe than sorry and if you have an extra skien you can alwasys make something small with it.