Not Interested Entertainment

I’ve decided to put together a run­ning list of items that I have dis­cov­ered that can save cos­play­ers a lot of time and frus­tra­tion, but that you prob­a­bly would never think to buy or uti­lize. This week’s item is sim­ple: the clear 2x18” ruler.

Now, I know what you’re think­ing, “Katie, I already have an expen­sive metal ruler with a no-slip rub­ber back­ing for draft­ing pat­terns, I don’t need this one.” Well, you are wrong, my friend! You have not LIVED until you have dis­cov­ered the ease behind this ruler’s oh-so-simple design. There’s a rea­son that they’re some­times called a Quilt­ing Ruler. Other times, they’re sold in the gen­eral draft­ing and mea­sure­ment sup­ply sec­tions, or with tools for architecture.

The sim­ple rea­son­ing behind using a clear grid­ded ruler is that you can draw a line while simul­ta­ne­ously mea­sur­ing the dis­tance from another line or edge (as long as it is less than 2″). With a stan­dard ruler, you have to make tick marks indi­cat­ing the dis­tance from the line or edge you wish the line you are draw­ing to be. Here is an exam­ple of the 2x18” clear ruler in action for pat­tern drafting:

Note that with this ruler, I can eas­ily mark first my 1/4″ hem allowance from the edge, then the cas­ing for my 3/4″ wide elas­tic. What took me sec­onds to line up with my clear ruler would prob­a­bly have taken dou­ble the time if I had used my Alu­mi­cut­ter™ ruler. It can also be used beyond pat­tern mak­ing, dur­ing the actual gar­ment construction.

Mark­ing a 2″ hem has never been easier!

The one down­side to this mag­i­cal ruler? It’s a slip­pery lit­tle devil. Because it’s clear, a rub­ber grip is out of the ques­tion, so you have to make sure you are hold­ing it down firmly, or it might swing off course right in the mid­dle of draw­ing a line. Another pit­fall? While it’s nice that the num­bers are small and unob­tru­sive, they also can be some­what dif­fi­cult to read. And try­ing to use it on red fab­ric?? For­get about it! I plan to pick one up in blue for this reason.

So if you don’t own one of these inex­pen­sive draft­ing God­sends, what are you wait­ing for? Head down to your local fab­ric, art sup­plies, or crafts store and pick one up now! You can thank me later.