Notions to Help Cutting Accurately

When you are starting out, one of the most frustrating first steps is cutting accurately with a rotary cutter and ruler.  It's hard to see and remember the line to follow.  The ruler slips and the cutting blade swerves.  There are always the expensive notions to make cutting more accurate but most of those are outside our budget or we need to invest more in fabric to start stash building. 

Today, let's look at a couple of products to help stop your ruler from sliding.  Most of us use the ruler with the yellow marking made by Omnigrid.  The same company makes green lined rulers called Omnigrip because there are textured areas on the bottom of the ruler that helps it grip the fabric.  The same company makes a clear plastic product for you to cut to size and place on the back of the yellow rulers to provide more traction.

I have used this on the back of the long ruler and really like it.

Creative Grids makes the rulers with black lines and textured or frosty looking dots on the back.  The frosty dots provide traction between the ruler and the fabric or cutting mat.  They have to be imported into Canada by individual quilt shops from an American distributor so they tend to be more costly, especially when the exchange rate drops.  They are great rulers though.  If you see someone using one, ask if you can try it out.

True Grips are small circles that you add to the back of the ruler.  You can place as many as you need and reposition them to suit a project's cutting needs.  When you peel one off the paper backing it looks like a donut.  The little centre circle comes away.  These little ones are great in the point of a triangle ruler like Studio 180s 'Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star.  It keeps the fabric under the narrow point from slipping.  We used them with Marti Michell templates too.