Ian's Shoelace Site - Introduction

Fun, fashion & science in this quirky site about shoelaces. Whether you want to learn to lace shoes, tie shoelaces, stop shoelaces from coming undone, calculate shoelace lengths or even repair aglets, Ian's Shoelace Site has the answer!

You can find out more About This Site, or you can dive right in below.

Table of Contents
	Lacing Shoes Are all of your shoes, sneakers and boots still laced up the way they were when you bought them? This section presents some of the many fascinating ways of lacing, either for different functions or just for appearances. Why not take the plunge? Whip out those laces and re-do them to suit your needs or personality.
	Tying Shoelaces Most people learn to tie their shoelaces around the age of five. Why then would anyone older than that visit a web site about tying shoelaces? Whether you're a parent, teacher, occupational therapist, academic, knot enthusiast, or just after some self-help, there's something for you.
	Slipping Shoelaces? Do your shoelaces always come undone? If so, you're probably tying a "Granny Knot", and one simple change to your technique will result in a balanced knot that sits straight and stays secure.
	Crooked Bows? Do your shoelace bows sit vertically instead of across the shoe? Do your hair ribbons refuse to sit straight? What about crooked bows on wedding invitations? All of these can be fixed with one simple change to your tying technique, creating a "balanced" knot that sits straight.
	Shoelace Lengths Many shoes nowadays come with shoelaces that are way too long. On the other hand, breaking a shoelace can leave it too short. Calculating the correct shoelace length for a particular shoe with a particular lacing method involves some pretty complicated mathematics. This section presents a Web-Based Calculator plus the underlying Shoelace Length Formulas to allow manual calculation.
	Shoelace Tips This section covers two meanings of the word "Tips". Firstly, there's "Shoelace Hints" for teaching children, for sportspeople, disabled people and everyone. Secondly, there's info on "Shoelace Ends" (= Aglets), including how to repair or replace them.
	Shoelace Books This section presents a selection of shoelace related books, each with my own personal assessment, available through the trusted on-line bookstore Amazon.com.
Preferred Lacing: [x] Bow Tie [x] Double Helix [x] Double Cross [x] Hash [x] Lattice [x] Zipper	Shoelace Polls Here's your chance to take part in some web polls on your preferred methods of lacing or tying your shoelaces. Hopefully these polls will give us some picture of which methods are the most popular, as well as showing whether this site has taught visitors something new.
WHY? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHICH?	Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.) You'll find the answers to Frequently Asked Questions here, mainly for the benefit of people typing those questions into search engines. It's also worth looking here before you send me a question for which I've already posted an answer.
	Shoelace News Stories Shoelaces are common, useful items. Here's some links to recent news stories, where you'll discover some of the good and bad, happy and sad events either caused by or involving shoelaces.
	Shoelace & Knotting Links Here's some links to other shoelace and knot related web sites. Providing links is good "Netiquette", enabling the Internet to effectively become its own index.

What's New?
	25-May-2008 - Updated Shoelace Tips section. Divided this single, long page of tips into several separate pages: Tips for Teaching Children / Sports / Elderly / Disabled / Everyone. Also expanded page on Shoelace Tips = Shoelace Ends = Aglets.
	25-May-2008 - Updated Aglet Repair section. Photos of all seven methods have been updated, plus added additional photos of multi-colored Heatshrink Tubing Aglets and of my custom aglet crimping anvil for Metal Tubing Aglets.
	08-Apr-2008 - Added Train Track Lacing. Like Army Lacing with the underlying crossovers running straight across instead of diagonally. The result looks like train tracks, and holds extremely tight because two passes of shoelace are squeezed through each eyelet.
	02-Apr-2008 - Updated diagrams of all Lug Lacing Methods. This brings the diagrams for eyelet lacing methods and lug lacing methods back into synch, using the newer diagrams from my book, Laces.

Shoe Lacing Photo of the Week
	Grey, black & silver Nike Dunk Highs with reflective trim and red & black combination of Double Lacing and Hash Lacing. Photo sent to me by Kaycee E. Kaycee sent me seven photos showing various lacing methods, of which this one was the most unusual. More Lacing Photos.

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