Hi, I'm Marita. Charles is my partner in life and work. We've been together for 28 years now. We've raised 5 children in a very small house, and currently have 3 full-time at home, 1 occasionally & 1 has actually moved out. Plus we have Maggie, our Australian Shepherd. The rabbit has gone to heaven. In between having all these children, working full time & trying to stay reasonably calm, I tried very hard to find some 'me-time'. Eventually I discovered quilting, and knew very quickly that this was my 'thing'. The main problem I had was trying to cut my strips accurately, as the ruler kept doing that horrible 'slide', just at the very end of the cut. I was seriously thinking I simply couldn't continue, it was driving me that crazy, when my wonderful man (and yes, he is handy) asked me why I didn't just buy something to stop that from happening.......When I explained that the things I'd bought didn't work for me, he immediately went out to 'the shed' and 2 days later came in with a prototype of the RuleSteady. The first one was a far cry from how it looks now - it was solid wood, and the little 'feet' underneath were old bike tyre tubes (black rubber, white fabric, you see my problem) BUT IT WORKED! So, I sent him straight back out with the request that he come back when I could see through it and he found something that wouldn't mark my fabric.

And it all grew from there.

I have FSH Muscular Dystrophy. I am not severely affected, but I have very little upper arm strength. I cannot lift my arms up much, and the right side of my body is not very strong. Initially we thought the RuleSteady would be beneficial mainly to people who struggle because of this type of disability, or have arthritis, carpal tunnel, or things of that type. But, it's made so much impact on people who don't have any problems, that we realised we needed to let everybody know.  At the quilting shows, I've seen a lot of people who've injured themselves with the rotary cutter - these injuries would have been avoided if they used the RuleSteady.

I've had ladies in wheelchairs use it, too, and several teachers have contacted me to let me know they can now teach their students how to cut SAFELY. My 12 year old is just starting to take an interest in my 'stitching stuff'. She sliced her thumb open with a stanley knife when she was 7 (long story, and NO, it wasn't  left out, she's just one of THOSE kids). And she already knows there's no way she's touching the cutter without the RuleSteady. She saw one lady with her arm in a sling after cutting off the tips of her fingers, and that finally had an impact on her.

Thanks for reading about how the RuleSteady came about. It's all we do, and we are passionate about quality. Your RuleSteady will be exactly the same as mine (just mine's had a lot of wear and tear over the years, but it's still as good as new).

Marita