On 1/12/11 6:09 AM, Margery Allcock wrote on the Lace list:
And in the UK we buy fabric (for patchwork, in my case)
by the metre, but it's 44 inches wide ...
I've seen many changes in standard fabric widths.
I dug it when it was 36" -- an even yard. And 45" made
sense too; a yard (despite the saying "all wool and a yard
wide") isn't nearly as convenient for laying out as a yard
and a quarter. Then it was 39" for a while, and that made
sense too -- we were importing most of our home-sewing
fabric, and if you measured a 39" fabric carefully, it was
really 39.37.
Then we switched to 60", and all I can say to that is "?",
"??" and "???". Particularly since 60" can be anything from
58" to 65".
Maybe it's a meter and a half. Plus or minus half a foot.
Plain and printed cotton is still often 45" -- presumably
because it's woven specifically for patchwork. (Which still
gives me future shock; patchwork used to be a way to use up
scraps.)
As for 44" -- that reminds me of the fifteen-ounce pound
that was standard for dried fruit until some marketer
realized that you could make the packages even smaller.
Well, well. I was going to say that the standard package is
now twelve ounces, but when I went to the freezer to check,
I discovered that Aldi still gives you fifteen ounces.
Which may be why all the boxes of dried fruit in the freezer
are from Aldi.
--
Joy Beeson
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
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west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
where it's snowing lightly.
Below zero last night, in the teens now.
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