Rosalie's Medieval Woman - Lucet Cord Tutorial

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. It was used to lace up clothes or 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!

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. Great 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.

	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.
	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.
	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.
	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. It looks like this.
	Step 5 Where the blue dot is, pull the wool gently to make a small loop. It's the piece at the BOTTOM.
	Step 6 Lift the loop where your blue dot is over the top of the starting prong.
	Step 7 It's now sitting at the back like this.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	Step 12 Over the prong goes your loop just like we did before.
	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.
	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..
	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! Happy sewing!

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