Cloth & Chalk is a calculator on this site and an app on the iPhone, built by one person. This page is the honest state of both: what has shipped, what is known to be wrong, and what is being worked on. It is updated when something changes rather than on a schedule.
Nothing here is hidden until it is fixed. If you have hit something that is not on this list, tell us and it will be.
A correction to the way trouser legs are laid out went live on this website first. The app still carries the older calculation until its next update is approved, so the same measurements can give a higher trouser figure in the app than on the site, and the same for any suit that includes trousers. The difference is largest at bigger sizes and can reach roughly a yard.
The website figure is the correct one. The app catches up in the next release, which is described below.
Cloth is bought by length, and length is decided by how many pattern pieces fit side by side across the width. When one size fits an extra piece across and the next size does not, that piece has to start a new row, and a row costs its full height rather than the inch that pushed it over. So the figure can step up sharply between two sizes that are almost the same.
The worst case we know of is trousers on 54 inch cloth, between 44R and 45R. This is a real cost rather than a rounding error, but it does mean a figure can look surprising next to the size below it. If you are close to a step, order the higher of the two.
The tables in the fabric guide and the yardage chart are sizes 36R to 44R in regular length. They are a guide to order against, not a promise for every body. For a long, short or fuller cut, run the actual measurements through the calculator instead of adding a margin to a published number.
Only the first of these is built. The rest are things we are considering, at different stages of thinking, and some of them will change or be dropped. No launch dates, deliberately: app updates go out when Apple approves them, and that timing is not ours to promise.
The trouser correction described above, plus a new choice between Either Way and One Way cloth. Velvet, corduroy, moleskin, brushed flannel and directional prints have to be cut with every piece the same way up, which costs more cloth. Everything else can be nested head to toe and costs less. Until now the calculator assumed the expensive answer for everything.
One thing to expect: a calculation you saved before this update may re-open showing slightly less cloth than when you saved it. The lower number is the corrected one.
The app now builds and runs on Android for the first time. Whether it goes to the Play Store, and when, is still an open question. It is not far off in engineering terms and further off in paperwork terms.
Fittings booked against a client, with reminders. The thinking is that the app should be a full tailor's kit rather than only a yardage calculator, and scheduling is the piece we keep coming back to. Nothing is built yet.
The glossary was the first of these. Cloth weight and fabric types are what we are considering next. Written slowly, from actual practice, rather than filled in for the sake of having more pages.