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What is a Stripology Ruler?
Dec
When Gudrun began quilting at 23 years old, she immediately fell in love with the meditative hobby. Transitioning into quilting being a career, she was always motivated by innovative techniques and finding ways to do things easier, faster and more efficiently, without compromising the look. This was the drive to figuring out a fabric cutting method that required minimal math, incredible accuracy, and easy simplicity. Thus, the first Stripology ruler was created.
What is a Stripology ruler? It is a Creative Grids ruler with a non-slip back and slit design. This allows for a fabric cutter to glide effortlessly along a track with little risk of getting an uneven cut. Each slit is numbered with varying increments. There are four types of rulers:
- Stripology XL is the largest ruler. What’s so special about this large ruler? Well, the height of this ruler makes strip cutting easy and quick, which is why customers adore this ruler. Slits start at 0” up to 20,” and each slit is separated by ½” increments. This is your work horse when cutting out a whole quilt but also has the capacity to cut 60º and 45º diamonds, triangles and parallelograms as well as square up blocks up to 12-½”
- Stripology Squared is more portable than its larger cousin, so it’s easier to navigate in a smaller sewing space and perfect for squaring up blocks. It has all the efficient features of the XL Ruler, but due to its smaller size, increments range from 0” to 12 ½”.
- Stripology Squared Mini is perfect for working with smaller blocks and fabric pieces, and it can trim blocks up to 6.5” by using slits ½” apart.
- Stripology Quarters Mini is the only ruler that has slits every ¼”, so it’s easy to trim small blocks and units. It comes with measurements up to 6 ¼”. It is also the newest ruler in the arsenal, so there’s still plenty of excitement around its release!
To expand upon the popularity of her Stripology rulers, Gudrun has written several books that feature the rulers and the incredible techniques they enable. Each book comes with instructions on using Stripology rulers or regular rulers for the numerous quilt patterns; all very easy to create for confident beginners, even though they may look complicated.
The newest book, Master Your Stripology Rulers, is like an encyclopedia for all things Stripology: a “Strip-O-Pedia!” It includes six quilt patterns for practicing the “Stripologizing” techniques, such as half square triangles, quarter square triangles, 60º and 45º angles and Flying Geese. Gudrun believes there should only be joy in quilt making, definitely no crying so her students have humorously named the GEasy Flying Geese technique “No Crying Flying Geese.” By using the Stripology rulers, the book teaches customers how to easily create flying geese from ¾” x 1 ½” to 6” x 12”.
In particular, the Master Your Stripology Rulers book lends itself to full or half day classes. So not only is it a great resource for customers, but also for shop owners who want to bring more traffic into their stores. Our experience is that every owner of a Stripology ruler wants to take that class and by the end of it, they are going to want to have all 4 rulers.
Other great features of the Master Your Stripology Rulers book are the QR codes that lead to instructional videos and the convenient spiral bound design. Many customers adore this new book; in fact, Checker Distributor and other shop owners have trouble keeping it in stock! Here are some customer testimonials about the book:
- “Spiral bound, all charts in one place, and easy flying geese!!” – Lori S.
- “I was able to handle patterns…for 3 7/8” squares. It was awesome.” – Jeanne T.
- What’s not to love? Spiral bound; clean, clear instructions; heavy paper; and QR codes – it’s all around awesome!” – Lynda P.
Gudrun Erla, the designer and owner of GE Designs, was born and raised in Iceland. After owning and running quilt shops in her home country, quilting brought her to Minnesota in 2003. Since then, Gudrun has been designing, publishing patterns, writing books, teaching and creating tools and programs for quilting full time from just west of the Twin Cities.
GE Designs
125 Columbia Court STE 8
Chaska, MN 55318
info@gequiltdesigns.com
help@gequiltdesigns.com
Phone: 952-361-9772
Website: www.gequiltdesigns.com
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YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/gedesigns
IG: @gedesignsgudrun
Wonderful article and a great description of the rulers and books
Excellent article giving a thorough explanation of how the Stripology rulers are used. I have all four and love them. I hope to take the Stripology Class some day.
Great description of the ruler and book!