On Monday, March 27, 2017 at 4:41:06 PM UTC-4, Brian Christiansen wrote:


The conversion from inches to cm or pounds to kilograms or whatever is
no problem for me. Even if it were, it is very easy to install an app
for unit conversion onto a smart phone, which many people have these
days. Even if a person does not have a smartphone, I have never seen a
cellphone (which most people do have) without a calculator of some sort.

Conversion is not a problem for me. Intellectually understanding metric
is not a problem for me. If the world around me all of a sudden changed
to metric (for example the fabric store selling fabric in m/cm instead
of ft/in or the hardware store selling chain or rope in m/cm or milk
being labelled in liters instead of quarts/gallons), I would have no
problems with that. I do not, however think "in metric."

Finally, I would just like to say that, at least to me, fractions and
decimals are just slightly different notations for the same thing.

Brian Christiansen

True enough, conversion is simple, and for the unfamiliar there are charts available all over the internet that have the base conversions for just about everything. There are even sites that will do it for you if you are in a hurry.
Fractions are fine, and easy enough to turn into decimals, but turning them into something measurable on an imperial quilting ruler can be tricksey. If you need a fraction below a quarter inch, which happens more often than you would think in some of the more complicated patterns, you pretty much have to drag out the good old ruler or yardstick, and draw lines or make templates. Often in patterns based on 3 or 6, you wind up having to rely on by guess or by golly because your fractions come out in thirds or sixths, which are not measurable on any ruler I own. If you round .333 down to 3 millimeters, or .666 up to seven you are not going to get near the sort of distortion you are liable to wind up with trying to guess at the fraction on an imperial ruler. I am most fond of blocks the interact to create an all over pattern, particularly counterpoint patterns. A bit of distortion throws things like that all wonky.

Because I am a general textile geek, I am thinking more in metric than I used to.
A lot of my favorite patterns and resources in the various ways of artfully tangling sting are European and therefor metric in all measures. I use metric when dying because it is much more precise.

I also have a few things that are awful combinations of a few systems.
Example: the momme is an ancient Japanese measure of weight, 1 momme = 3..75 grams, 1 square yard of 4 momme silk gauze weighs about 12.25 grams or slightly more than 1/2 ounce

One of these days the US will get with the program and make the switch to metric.

NightMist