Little bit of help needed please

[lyn]

I'm in the process of putting a free tutorial on our blog and it's called 'how to make a seamless bag' (it was written for a UK mag earlier in the year).
And I'm embarrassed to have to admit that I've only just considered readers outside of Europe during the writing of the draft.

I've changed the word 'bag' to the word 'purse' throughout the tutorial because there will probably be a lot of readers more familiar with American-English.

The tutorial involves a lot of metric measurements - grams and centimetres - so could someone please tell me if this is acceptable/understood in the U.S.?
Or are ounces and inches preferred?

(I googled the question but the answers I found were not conclusive one way or the other.)

If ounces and inches are preferred, then when I do conversions, how should I write the 'parts'?
e.g.
100g is roughly equivalent to three and one half ounces.
Should I write 3.5 or 3 1/2?

[karen]

Hi Lyn, well i'm in the land of Oz and just about everything i read is from overseas and in ounces or pounds but were in metric here so i usually have to convert things myself, i think it would helpful to have both sets of measurements but for me its really not a big deal, and as i'm still trying to work out how to get a bag right then i'll definitely be grabbing that tutorial lol

[MTRuth]

Lyn - listing both would be helpful not necessary. People can figure it out easily with online resources. I would use 3 1/2. And we use the word bag and purse interchangeably.

[Shepherdess]

I would say for measurements have both and either way of writing it is fine. In Canada we are metric. If you want to know if it's understandable in the USA you should have Ruth have a look.

[zed]

I'd agree with Ruth.
If you're able enough to make a bag, you can work out a few conversions

Here is a link to an online converter, you could recommend it if you wanted to
www.onlineconversion.com/

[lyn]

Thank you all for taking the time to help.

Karen and Ann - I didn't know that Oz and Canada were both metric, so that's good news for me!

Ruth - I didn't know that purse and bag were both acceptable on your side of the pond, but I'll leave it as purse now because that word hints at something small enough to just carry a mobile phone, a little cash and lippy, which is the size of the item in the tutorial.

Ruth and Zed - Considering your comments, I've decided to just stick with the metric as you both think it acceptable, because after I'd posted the question on here last night, I played around with putting both sets of measurements in and it makes the tutorial look as though it's complicated. So I would be worried that it might put people off trying it.

For instance, in my list of materials and equipment needed, there are either grams, centimetres or litres mentioned in 7 of the 10 bullet points.
With both sets of measurements in, it looked horrendously long and complicated.

Putting both measurements in the body of the tutorial would be ok, but people might fall at the first hurdle of materials and equipment.

[pamd]

Lyn, I have to say that I would hesitate, slightly, at something I would have to look up all the conversions for, as I am definitely not familiar with grams, centimetres and litres, but it wouldn't stop me.

Have you thought of just putting conversions of the numbers you use in a chart form somewhere in the book? However, since most of the world seems to use your system, I'm not sure I would worry so much about it. ( I do tend to avoid recipes that use metric, so perhaps it is just me being old and lazy.)

[zed]

That's a good idea from Pam about the chart.
If you do use conversions anywhere, you should know that in the US they like to use 'cups' for liquid (and solid bizarrely ) measurements, and these are different to our cups, which are a metric version
ie 1 US cup is 236.5 ml
1 metric cup is 250ml

they also have a different sized pint and it is split into 16 ounces, not 20

I'm sure most scales have grams and ounces, jugs have mls and pints, and tape measures cms and inches

[Shepherdess]

Pam its funny what you said about recipes. I don't cook in metric either. Cook books here are in imperial or both. My British stuff is imperial but no cups its all by weight.

[MTRuth]

I agree Lyn that it is difficult and confusing to have both sets of measurements. I had to do that for the book and parts were a bit much I thought. I guess if you're really going for the American market, then I would include both. Maybe just list a converter online site.

[lyn]

Zed - my head started spinning as I read all about it in your reply.

Then when I read your last sentence, the penny dropped and I feel really stupid now.

I looked at my tape and I looked at my kitchen scales and of course you are quite right.
The tape has both cms and inches and the scales have both grams and ounces.

There's the conversion just staring at me - so there's no need for anyone to have to use a converter at all.







Thank you everyone!

[zed]

Yeah, it can get complicated

I don't know how many times I've tried to halve an American recipe and tried to work out something like how much is half of an 1/8th of a cup of flour. or butter

[Shepherdess]

That's easy for butter. 1 cup is half a pound just keep cutting it in half. We have markings on the side of the butter paper. I've never see 1/8 cup of flour, when it's that small they usually give it to you in tablespoons. I use this converter. www.google.com/ig#m_26 not sure if that will work for you. It's on my iGoogle home page. It's one of thousands of things you can put on your page. I use it a lot.

[zed]

The thing is, our butter doesn't come in half a pound, it comes in 250g
No, that didn't work.

[MTRuth]

I don't think there is an easy way to do this. We just have a screwy system of measurements compared to the rest of the world.