Lets yarn about yards

Here in Australia we work in the metric system for everything.  Its easy - I mean what is not to like about a system that is divisable by 10, 100 and 1000?

Its not easy when it comes to patchwork though.  There was a push in the 1990's in Australia to convert quilters to metric block measurements, with special mats and rulers because we purchase lenghts of fabrics in metres.  But lets face it - the math got awfully complicated.  I don't think there were many of us who were surprised that metric quilting never really took off.

I'm not that bad at quilt math and will confidently sit with a notebook to work out how much yardage I need to buy for my projects. (Yes, I know, I just used the 'y' word).  As a rule of thumb, I work out how many width of fabric (WOF) cuts I needed in inches and then convert this to meters.  

Now I know there are a lot of great measurement conversion apps out there but my fall back methods to date have been pretty basic:

1. Grab my extra long quilter's tape measure, find the total length in inches and flip it over to see the metric equivalent; or
2. Just ask Siri on my iPhone

I've been busy over the last few weeks doing the costings for several quilt kits as well as writing up a pattern which will be appearing in a few months time (I know - exciting right?). Inches to metres is one thing, but the fractions of a yard which appear on the materials lists of many patterns were doing my head in.  After asking Siri "How many meters are in 5/8ths of a yard"  for the third time, I started to jot a few common lengths down in the back of my note book.  

As my notes grew I decided to share them with you all here. If you're not familiar with the metric system  the below will also help you to work backwards and understand our metric cuts better as well.

Here's a few tables I've pulled together and hope you find handy.

For quilters used to working in yards, the table below provides the dimensions of our metric cuts in the store.  Our cuts are sold in multiples of 25cm, and we usually cut this across the WOF, though you can ask us to send you Fat Quarters by leaving a comment at the checkout.

Metric FQs are cut as a 20" WOF strip which is then cross cut in half.  With standard width quilting cottons, metric FQs therefore measure roughly 20" x 21", which is slightly larger than factory-cut or imperial FQs which are  18" x 21".

Because of the extra couple of inches, metric FQs yield more standard patchwork shapes than imperial FQs.  In the table below I have outlined the number of squares in different sizes that are able to be cut from both sizes so that you can use this when working out how much to buy for your own projects.