How much is 50 grams?

I'm forever scared that I'm going to run out of yarn in the middle of a pair of socks if I skimp, and so I always end up with a ton of extra yarn. (Until I get a good scale, I don't think I'll have the courage to combine leftover scraps into new socks, either.) My sock pal has feet which are very close in size to mine, and for her, this is 50 grams. I want to find out how far 50 grams of sock yarn goes on me. I don't know that I have the patience to do this in stockinette, so I'll probably use a bit of a cable pattern (c.f. Nancy Bush).

By the power of toe-up socks, I'm going to find out how far up my leg 50 grams of Koigu goes. As long as I'm at it, I'll run a little contest: guess how many inches up my leg 50 grams of purple Koigu will go (starting at the anklebone. I'll send whoever comes the closest 100g of sock yarn to conduct their own experiment. Personally, I'd be extremely interested in collecting pictures of how far 50 grams will go for as many people as possible; how much yarn does one really need to knit socks for someone of a certain size?

You don't have to guess blind. This isn't a particularly good picture, but here's my leg (ooh! blinding!). I have a size 6.5-7 (37-38) foot, and wear 33-34" inseam pants. There is a bunch of dancing crammed into that calf muscle.


Shannon has gotten us off to a good start with two examples on her size-10 feet: 10" and 7". Lesson? Consistency in foot-length is important, but more key is that cabling-ish patterns use up a lot of yarn.