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More about the wonderclips



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 23rd 17, 09:17 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Brian Christiansen
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Posts: 113
Default More about the wonderclips

I finished the pants, sort of. I decided to go with the elastic in the
pants, but I cannot actually do that until I buy the elastic, but I did
sew the crotch seam and make a casing for the elastic.

I looked at the seams, and what I originally did was the suggestion made
that I make it into a flat-fell seam. I did not make a "true" flat-fell
seam in that I did not cut back one of the seam allowances and fold the
other one down.

Instead I made what might be called a "lazy mans" flat-fell seam and
sewed the seam allowance down. It also looks like I zig-zagged the seam
allowance before I did this as well. I decided to just leave the
inseams this way instead of resewing them.

I did sew the crotch seam as a French seam and used the wonderclips
instead of pins for this and I think that they work quite well. Some
things, I think they would work for, and others they would not. For
example, I do not see how they would work for sewing down a patch pocket.

The clips have marks on them at what appears to be 1 and 1.5cm, but they
are difficult to see unless I have my reading glasses and am holding
them so the light hits them just right, so I am not sure how they would
be useful even if I sewed "in metric."

I am somewhat in favor of the metric system, but my sewing machine and
my quilting rulers are calibrated in inches, not metric, so I do not
have the tools to quilt "in metric."

Quite a few people, even people in the US, criticize the US for not
adopting the metric system.

Even if the US were "metric" in some official way...oh
wait..http://www.us-metric.org/metric-convention-of-1875/..
the US is "metric" in some official way...so:

Even though the US is "metric" in some official way, the difficulty is
in getting most people in the US to use metric in their everyday life.

I have heard several explanations for this.

One is that many Americans think of metric as the measurement system for
scientists and engineers, but the system for "regular" people is the US
standard system (NOT imperial, but that is another rant, it just bugs
the heck out of me when people say the US uses the imperial measurement
system) of inches-quarts-pounds. That is not really true, at least I do
not think it is, but it is a widely held attitude.

Another is that metric is some kind of conspiracy. I am not sure how
they work, but I think that the contention is that, for example, a liter
is about 5% bigger than a quart, but the food companies would be vague
about that and use it to try to sneak by a 10% increase in price.

My late father's theory is that the US customary system is what he used
so it is what he teaches me, and what I teach my children (if I had
any), and so on.

From a practical standpoint, as I said, my sewing equipment is
calibrated in inches/fractions of inches. I suppose I could buy rulers
and a faceplate for my sewing machine that are calibrated in metric, but
I see no good reason to do so.

My cooking stuff, such as my measuring spoons, measuring cups, etc, or
at least most of them, are marked in both metric and standard US units,
so I certainly could use metric there, but most recipes that I have
access to are written using US customary units, so it is just more
practical to use the "regular" markings (tsp, tbsp) than the metric ones.

If I go to the fabric store, it is just more practical to ask for
1yd,1ft of material than to ask for 1.2 meters and explain that means
1yd,1ft of material. If I flew to a fabric store in Paris or London,
the opposite would be true, it would be much more practical to ask for
1.2 meters instead of 1yd,1ft.

I am 6ft tall. Intellectually, I know that is 1.8m or 180cm, but I
think of my height as 6ft, not 180cm.

Same with my weight (sorry, you do not get to find out what that
actually is). Intellectually, I know that it is .5X kg, but I still
think of it as X pounds.

--
My Yonkoma: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brian0...57680223526176

The E-mail associated with the account is a "spamcatcher" account that I
got to every couple of months to empty out, and anything sent to it will
not be seen for probably several months, if it is seen at all.
Brian Christiansen
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  #2  
Old March 23rd 17, 10:26 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Bobbie Sews More
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Posts: 1,210
Default More about the wonderclips

Thanks for the update!
Barbara in FL


  #3  
Old March 24th 17, 09:10 AM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Night Mist
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Posts: 44
Default More about the wonderclips


I often dream about going completely metric in sewing. The math would be so much easier!
Just imagine never having to use fractions. Never having to swear at your quilting ruler because it does not have all the "right" fractions. Never having to deal with thirds or fifths because that is how the geometry came out.
Just think of all the math in decimals that you can round to a single place because centimeters are less than half the size of inches and millimeters are 1/10th of that.
I am planning on just ordering a couple of metric quilting rulers off Amazon. I am sick to death of the shops telling me they cannot get them for less than ridiculous prices.
I already use the metric side of my tape measure for most of my garment sewing. Since I draft my own patterns most of the time I can do that pretty painlessly.
I keep a shrink log so I know what the approximate widths of the various fabrics I buy are after prewash. However If you don't prewash all you have to do is multiply by 2.54 to turn inches into centimeters, and divide by that to turn centimeters into inches. Hardly an arithmetic trauma, and you can figure out how much you need in either direction. I often pick up a few metres of this or that when I visit Canada, so my math swings both ways.

NightMist
  #4  
Old March 27th 17, 09:41 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Brian Christiansen
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Posts: 113
Default More about the wonderclips

On 03/24/2017 01:10 AM, Night Mist wrote:

I often dream about going completely metric in sewing. The math would be so much easier!
Just imagine never having to use fractions. Never having to swear at your quilting ruler because it does not have all the "right" fractions. Never having to deal with thirds or fifths because that is how the geometry came out.
Just think of all the math in decimals that you can round to a single place because centimeters are less than half the size of inches and millimeters are 1/10th of that.
I am planning on just ordering a couple of metric quilting rulers off Amazon. I am sick to death of the shops telling me they cannot get them for less than ridiculous prices.
I already use the metric side of my tape measure for most of my garment sewing. Since I draft my own patterns most of the time I can do that pretty painlessly.
I keep a shrink log so I know what the approximate widths of the various fabrics I buy are after prewash. However If you don't prewash all you have to do is multiply by 2.54 to turn inches into centimeters, and divide by that to turn centimeters into inches. Hardly an arithmetic trauma, and you can figure out how much you need in either direction. I often pick up a few metres of this or that when I visit Canada, so my math swings both ways.

NightMist



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.

--
My Yonkoma: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brian0...57680223526176

The E-mail associated with the account is a "spamcatcher" account that I
got to every couple of months to empty out, and anything sent to it will
not be seen for probably several months, if it is seen at all.
Brian Christiansen
  #5  
Old March 30th 17, 02:00 AM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Night Mist
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Posts: 44
Default More about the wonderclips

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
  #6  
Old July 9th 17, 06:37 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
[email protected]
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Posts: 1
Default More about the wonderclips

Hello!

Pica rulers have thirds and sixths of an inch. Well, modern pica rulers, not the old ones.

Â*Â*Â*Â* Anyway, I know that this is besides the point, but I've got a unit conversion app that I'm releasing a new version of, and I thought I'd see if people around here would like to test it.

Â*Â*Â*Â* You can convert units and ratios.

Â*Â*Â*Â* You can convert two units at a time.

Â*Â*Â*Â* You can use fractions.

Â*Â*Â*Â* You have more units than you can shake a stick at (but don't, it make them mad).

Â*Â*Â*Â* So, if anyone wants it's he https://play.google..com/apps/testin...nversion_A pp

 




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