Measuring up!

This week I've been working on a dress from a pattern I've not used before. The first thing I do with a new pattern is to figure out which size I need to cut. I'm not yet a proficient enough seamstress to be able to do too much editing to a pattern. I also typically don't sew muslins, preferring to make a wearable muslin as a first attempt that can be improved upon.

I find that my more successful garments stem from a good guestimation on what size to cut- choosing which size to cut can be somewhat haphazard and usually takes me a long time of deliberation to finally settle on which size I'm going to cut. It does however need accurate measurements. There's lots on information out there on how to correctly measure yourself. But here's the question - metric or imperial?

I've taken my measurements in both cm and inches, but I'm never sure which chart I should be looking at. Obviously the one of the left is in imperial (inches and yards) which is used in Britain and the USA and the one on the right is in metric (centimetres and metres) used in Europe. I find that in the UK however, this is somewhat confusing since we buy fabric in metres but generally measure garments in inches.

I've made garments from both imperial (Collette) and metric (Tilly and the Buttons) measurements with equal success. I feel somewhat guilty when I use imperial over metric due being taught to use metric units at school. When I began sewing I found I used cm more often than inches and as I progress I am becoming more competent with using inches. Things do seem to be more set up for inches, for example bias tape generally comes in 1 or 1/2 inch widths and my sewing machine only has inches on the measuring plate.

I guess that it doesn't matter what units of measurements you use as long as you are accurate and consistent. I'm happy using either.

Anyone know of any rules for when we should use which system of measurement? What units do you use?