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Sewing
Tutorial:
Lucet Braid- Making A Four Sided Square Lace
When medieval records talk about lace, they mean the kind
of laces that we use today for shoes, not the frilly stuff
you see at the collars and cuffs of later time periods.
Laces were used to lace
up clothes or as drawstrings for pouches. Braid or lace can
be made by fingerlooping or with a lucet. The advantage of lucet
braid is that instead of a round lace, it makes a four-sided
square lace which I find to be non-slip for clothing and drawstring
pouches- everything stay firmly laced in!
Laces on most medieval clothes are designed to not be seen,
invisibly closing an opening. In the 15th century, the Italian
fashion for wide, laced front lacing kirtles which showed off
the pleated chemises underneath, used contrasting colours as
a fashion thing and lacing rings instead of eyelets. Again,
for earlier medieval times, the lacings were designed to be
invisible, like our zips today.
What
you need:
You need: a lucet or any other two-pronged instrument, wool
or crocheting cotton if you're not being 100% authentic. Wool
is good to practice with because it's thicker. Perfect until
you get your technique down, then even linen or silk thread
can be used!
Crocheting cotton makes a great skinny braid for garment use
or pouch drawstrings and comes in a lot of great colours.
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Step
1
There's a bit of turning the front and back of the lucet around
involved, so I've put a pink dot on the side of the lucet
to help show which side is where.
Feel free to put a dot on your own lucet until you get the
hang of it. |
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Step
2
Start with your wool like this.
Obviously, if your wool is in your lap, it wouldn't be looping
over the top- I've got the wool on the table for demonstration
purposes. |
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Step
3
Put your thumb here in the middle of the lucet.
You will need to maintain a firm hold. As the braid grows,
you feed it under your thumb to keep an even pressure on the
braid and keep your work even. Don't worry about that yet.
The wool goes behind the first prong like this. |
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Step
4
As you bring the wool towards the front, you now make a figure
8 around the two prongs until you have wool passing over
your original piece of wool. You've made a figure 8.
It looks like this. |
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Step
5
Where the blue dot is, pull the wool gently to make a small
loop.
It's the piece at the BOTTOM. |
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Step
6
Lift the loop where your blue dot is over the top of the starting
prong. |
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Step
7
It's now sitting at the back like this. Hopefully. |
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Step
8
Pull your wool to the right hand side of the lucet to tension
the entire thing.
The purple dot is where you're pulling. |
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Step
9
So far, so good!
Now turn your lucet clockwise towards you so your lucet front
is now your back.
The pink dot is now on the other side of the lucet and the
wool is on the right hand side. |
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Step 10
Pull your wool so it lies ABOVE the existing wool on the
right sided prong.
Your wool goes ABOVE the piece with the orange dot.
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Step
11
Just like you did at the very start, make a loop by pulling
the wool at the BOTTOM where the orange dot is.
You have your loop now. |
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Step
12
Over the prong goes your loop just like we did before. |
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Step
13
Pull the wool to the right hand side to tension it and (the
same as before) turn your lucet clockwise towards you so your
lucet back is now your front again.
The pink dot has now made a complete circle and is back where
it started. Congratulations! That's how it's done.
Remember- always turn your lucet clockwise, not back
and forth. |
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Step
14
It's now looking like this again. Exactly like Step 10.
Next you're going to pull a loop out at the bottom and over
the top of the prong it goes... |
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Step 15
The first few rounds will not look too great, but after
a few minutes, you will see a braid start to form. Keep
your thumb pulling downwards on the wool and when you turn
clockwise, keep a little pressure from your hand to hold
it steady. Getting the tension right is half the trick.
Too tight, and your
loop won't go over the prong, too loose and you'll have
a very loose, loopy braid.
Starting out can be
slow and full of tears, but once you've got the hang of
it, it's something you can do almost anywhere and anytime!
If you feel you've made too much of a mess, just take it
off the lucet and it all should just unravel so you can
try again.
Happy sewing!
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Copyright
© Rosalie Gilbert
All text & photographs within this site are the property of
Rosalie Gilbert unless stated.
Art & artifact images remain the property of the owner.
Images and text may not be copied and used without permission.
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