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 Marketplace *- NEW!* Looking to buy shoelaces or related items? Ian's Shoelace Site doesn't yet have a web store, but it does have a marketplace, where you'll find selected merchants of shoelaces, accessories, gadgets, books, teaching aids, and anything else I've been able to track down.
	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.
	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?
	28-Aug-2008 - Added Shoelace Marketplace. Until such time as Ian's Shoelace Site gets a web store, I've added a Marketplace, where you can find merchants selling shoelaces, accessories, gadgets, books, and other related items.
	23-Aug-2008 - Updated Shoelace News Stories. Added story of a burglar who was left hanging upside down against a window after trapping a shoelace during a break-in.
	17-Aug-2008 - Updated Shoelace News Stories. Added story of Usain Bolt, who broke his own world record in the 100m sprint during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, despite finishing with his left shoelace untied.
	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.

Shoe Lacing Photo of the Week
	Black Vans sneakers with white Lattice Lacing. Photo sent to me by Adam C. Adam ran the bottom horizontal section under the tongue, posing the finished result in front of my site's instructions! More Lacing Photos.

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