I finished the pants, sort of. I decided to go with the elastic in the pants, but I cannot actually do that until I buy the elastic, but I did sew the crotch seam and make a casing for the elastic.
I looked at the seams, and what I originally did was the suggestion made that I make it into a flat-fell seam. I did not make a "true" flat-fell seam in that I did not cut back one of the seam allowances and fold the other one down.
Instead I made what might be called a "lazy mans" flat-fell seam and sewed the seam allowance down. It also looks like I zig-zagged the seam allowance before I did this as well. I decided to just leave the inseams this way instead of resewing them.
I did sew the crotch seam as a French seam and used the wonderclips instead of pins for this and I think that they work quite well. Some things, I think they would work for, and others they would not. For example, I do not see how they would work for sewing down a patch pocket.
The clips have marks on them at what appears to be 1 and 1.5cm, but they are difficult to see unless I have my reading glasses and am holding them so the light hits them just right, so I am not sure how they would be useful even if I sewed "in metric."
I am somewhat in favor of the metric system, but my sewing machine and my quilting rulers are calibrated in inches, not metric, so I do not have the tools to quilt "in metric."
Quite a few people, even people in the US, criticize the US for not adopting the metric system.
Even if the US were "metric" in some official way...oh wait..
Even though the US is "metric" in some official way, the difficulty is in getting most people in the US to use metric in their everyday life.
I have heard several explanations for this.
One is that many Americans think of metric as the measurement system for scientists and engineers, but the system for "regular" people is the US standard system (NOT imperial, but that is another rant, it just bugs the heck out of me when people say the US uses the imperial measurement system) of inches-quarts-pounds. That is not really true, at least I do not think it is, but it is a widely held attitude.
Another is that metric is some kind of conspiracy. I am not sure how they work, but I think that the contention is that, for example, a liter is about 5% bigger than a quart, but the food companies would be vague about that and use it to try to sneak by a 10% increase in price.
My late father's theory is that the US customary system is what he used so it is what he teaches me, and what I teach my children (if I had any), and so on.
From a practical standpoint, as I said, my sewing equipment is calibrated in inches/fractions of inches. I suppose I could buy rulers and a faceplate for my sewing machine that are calibrated in metric, but I see no good reason to do so.
My cooking stuff, such as my measuring spoons, measuring cups, etc, or at least most of them, are marked in both metric and standard US units, so I certainly could use metric there, but most recipes that I have access to are written using US customary units, so it is just more practical to use the "regular" markings (tsp, tbsp) than the metric ones.
If I go to the fabric store, it is just more practical to ask for
1yd,1ft of material than to ask for 1.2 meters and explain that means 1yd,1ft of material. If I flew to a fabric store in Paris or London, the opposite would be true, it would be much more practical to ask for 1.2 meters instead of 1yd,1ft.I am 6ft tall. Intellectually, I know that is 1.8m or 180cm, but I think of my height as 6ft, not 180cm.
Same with my weight (sorry, you do not get to find out what that actually is). Intellectually, I know that it is .5X kg, but I still think of it as X pounds.