As recently posted on the Phoenix Glade Yahoo!Group…

Greet was using her foot for finger loop braiding. Not sure why she was
using her foot but she was.

Somewhere there’s a picture of me doing this.  Until then, imagine me parked on a sofa, with my foot propped on a chair in front of me.  I’ve got the knot end of the braid tucked into my shoe strap, and long loops hooked on each of my fingers.  In order to keep the strands in proper tension, I ended up doing a kind of abdominal crunch on every thread braided.  The whole thing ended up being called "Greet’s Bow-Flex".  But it worked.  (Not a bad stomach and deltoid burn, either.)


These are ties for my detached sleeves, and to lace up my plaid overdress more properly.  Lavena is threatening me with a job of casting lace tips for my laces.  Sigh – so much to do.

THOUGHT – Perhaps I could trade knitting skills for somebody to cast me some lace tips?  Anyone?

I’m rather sure that I’m not done here – these laces are not as slender as the ones shown in  Van der Goes Massacre of the Innocents though it does answer a lacing question. (And the tip question.  Thar be those tips – I’m not going to get out of them.)  My lacing question stemmed from various pictures: Bottom up?  Or top down?  I’m not sure that one way is better than the other, both from the art record and from experimentation.  If I were a nursing mother, like the one Van der Goes paints, I’d be lacing bottom up for sure, to hush that squalling child.  But it must’ve been a bear to do that all the time – it’s much easier to take the dress off quickly if it’s laced top down.  (I expect new moms probably didn’t care much about opportunities to get their clothes off quickly.)  It’s certainly easier to fit the dress if the top of the lace is fastened securely, to complete the neckline, and then you can fuss about with the waist.