Quote Originally Posted by craftychris View Post
Now all this is all very amusing and so real. But could someone please explain to me why we buy fabric by the metre and cut in imperial? Is it an Aussie thing or an all over the world thing?
Most quilting was done in the USA and UK and other nations were in the minority and went along with it. Australia used to have feet and inches and older people still refer to them. Nearly all patterns produced today are still in inches

Much of our fabric comes from the USA and widths there are in inches (approx 42") but everything else is metric here so we buy the lengths in metres! (Same in the UK and Europe) I would think that there are more American quilters than anywhere else so everything will be measured in inches. I doubt Americans will every become metric although their currency is decimal (100 cents to the $) We started to go metric in the UK back in the 70s but never went the whole way. So weights for food is in metric but distances are measured in miles and yards. Clothes have both and the building industry works mainly in metric. Very confusing.