Sorting through my rulers

Welcome to Tidy Friday.  Now that I'm on this clean up and clear out jag, I think I will tackle a different category every Friday until it's done.  I'm am so grateful to have the pressure of keeping my blog going, because it would be very easy to procrastinate doing this kind of thing.

Well, you see, I have these two drawers that sit at the end of my cutting table. The one on the right has all my rulers, curves and templates. Again, I have many more than I need AND, seriously, I don't think I've cleaned this drawer out in over 20 years. About 7 or 8 years ago I moved my studio from one room to another in my home, but I just moved these drawers, as is. Didn't touch them. Now it's time!

My large rulers are well taken care of. I made this nice hanging pouch for them a while back.

I have three yard sticks and I really need and use all three.

And these three specialty rulers, the top one is called a pants curve or, I think sometimes, a large french curve.  For years it was the only large specialty ruler I had. But owning the other ones have made my life much easier.  The middle one is called a hip curve. It is really good for curves along hip lines and for the gentle curves at the bottom of skirts.  The "L" square is so great to have, but you can really manage without it. A 90 degree corner can be found on all sorts of things like the corner of a book or the cardboard back of a legal pad.

BUT!!! this drawer is the problem.

Here are the contents dumped out. There are a lot of rulers I don't use and just a lot of garbage.

First, the garbage. Over time, stuff has just kind of fallen into this drawer and sifted to the bottom. It's so easy to ignore.

These are all excess rulers and templates, I never use, that are still good. I will bag these up and take them to the thrift store.

I have a pile of personal templates I've made and collected over the years for things that were useful when I was making a lot of toy samples. I really don't need them anymore.

And you can find all those things on the internet now a days, anyway. I will keep the pattern for a mattress corner though. Simplicity has me do bedding from time to time.

These templates get used constantly. They seemed so expensive when I bought them, but they last forever and I have certainly gotten my money's worth.

This probably seems like more rulers than any one person could need, but as I work on a project my rulers are always getting buried under and in between things. So, I am going to keep all these. And they do break and get nicked and after a time the numbers and lines wear off.

I will keep these curves and triangles.

These extra curves I'm going to put in my box of things I use when teaching. Which I hope to be doing more of.

The proportional scales I can't live without.  They save me doing a lot of math.  They are very useful for making an accurate sample and pattern from licensed artwork, like when I make Disney costumes.  If the proportions are off, Disney won't approve them and I have to re-do my sample.

So, now I only have what I need and will use. BUT!!

I think I need to address the drawer next door.  That will be fun.