Month: March 2010

Did that exciting post title get your attention? Well, it’s been consuming my attention for the past several days. As you may know, I am working on a sewing book for Chronicle Books and am actually nearing completion — hurray! Anyway, there’s been some discussion about how/if to include metric conversions. Yes, I apologize for our vastly inferior standard of measurement in the U.S., but we have given it our name and it’s ours. The customary units are quaint and familiar —  it would indeed be difficult for me to hand over the yard stick.

Anyway, if you use the metric system and you sew, I need your opinion. If you don’t live in the U.S., Liberia or Myanmar, then I’m talking to you! Do you ever sew from patterns using U.S. measurements? If so, how do you make the conversions? Do you go online, use a tape measure, or actually do math? Have you ever had a pattern come out wrong due to the conversion?

Would you like to see conversions in a U.S. sewing book? Would you mind flipping to the back of the book or do you want the measurements right there on the page? Do you need all the measurements or can you figure some out on your own? My concern is that having too many measurements on the page might make you more likely to misread a number and make a mistake. But of course I don’t want to be a solipsistic American, so let me know what you think.

Pictured above: Linen Measuring Tape Ribbon from Cotton Blue.