Travel Gear Review: Midori Clip Ruler

[terriko]

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

I picked up this ruler to go with my travel notebook. I didn’t use it the way I thought I would, but it found a niche that made it fit perfectly into my travel stationery setup.

What is it?

A metal ruler that also acts as a clip bookmark and a stencil.

Image Description: A Midori Clip ruler: a copper metal ruler with stencil holes in it. The end is folded to make a clip. It is sitting on a larger black Field Notes brand notebook.

Link: https://www.jetpens.com/Midori-Clip-Ruler-Copper-Daily-Life/pd/29899

What problem did I need it to solve?

I wanted a travel ruler for drawing lines. I was mostly expecting to use it for lines in the knitting charts I was writing out and modifying during the trip. I figured I’d use it for bullet journal type stuff too, such as drawing the monthly calendar I use for tracking.

How did it work out for me?

Turns out that this actually isn’t a great ruler. The stencil meant it felt a bit flimsy on one side as you move it around on the page, and the clip is just barely enough to make a slight bump if you try to draw a line longer than 10cm. This especially was an issue for me when I drew out the calendar I use for a bunch of monthly tracking stuff.

But it is an absolutely *fantastic* bookmark for holding open the Field Notes notebook that I was using. It’s just just enough weight to hold the pages open and it worked quite well when I needed a pattern place marker for the knitting I was doing.

Image Description: My Midori Clip Ruler being used to hold open a notebook and mark a place in my pattern. The pattern is a variant on the Kelpie Etudes charts from Gannet Designs, and it has been written out in pencil. The ruler is made of copper and is holding the notebook open without much difficulty.

It turns out I didn’t need to draw as many lines as I thought I would, but I *did* need to hold the pages open while knitting my shawl for a month during and after the trip. It was also great for just marking my page so I could immediately open to the pattern page I was working on (a bit of an issue as I was working with 4 very similar charts).

It also worked ok as a stencil the few times I used it. It’s very small so it worked best with my mechanical pencil (then I coloured the results with gel pen sometimes). I could probably find ways to integrate these particular icons into my tracking, but many of them are ones I don’t use right now so it’s not super useful to me.

Things that could be better

I feel like there’s got to be a way to design this such that the clip nudges in just a milimetre or so so the full length can be used for drawing lines, but it’s clear that they intended you to use the internal slots for that so maybe that’s on me for using it outside of the design intention? If you look closely in the image below you can see the wobble at the end of the line where I hit the clip while drawing.

Image Description: Close up of the Midori Clip Ruler in use as a bookmark, showing the shape of the clip while the ruler is on the other side of the paper.

The icon choices aren’t super useful to me, so I’m probably going to keep freehanding most of my personal icons. Still, I enjoyed having some of these and maybe I’ll find uses for them now that I have them!

Overall

I was completely surprised at how much I loved this ruler/bookmark!

I nearly talked myself out of buying it before the trip since I already have a few small “gauge swatch” rulers thanks to knitting. But this was significantly better: it’s super small and slender, stays put in the notebook even if I have to stuff it in a bag in a hurry, and as a bookmark and page holder it found a real niche in my life. Despite feeling flimsy as a ruler, it felt satisfying as a bookmark and absolutely stayed put. I’d be afraid to use it in a library book lest I forget it, but it would be great in books I own. I’m debating trying some other metal bookmarks to replace the post it notes I use in pattern books while I’m working out a design.

I’m tempted to get another one with one of the other stencil options because I love it so much and wouldn’t mind having a spare for my larger journal. I just noticed the cat version has a book icon that would be perfect for my book review tracking!