
Ian's Shoelace Site - Tomte
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm
======
dijit
So strange to see this here.. I spent a couple days reading the site a few
years ago. It was during a time where I was looking for alternative ways to
live my life and if I could have subtle improvements on everyday things.

I learned a few knots and even now when I buy a new pair of shoes I consult
the site to see what lacing style would suit the shoe and my foot. (since
different styles put different tension on the wearers foot).

I have to say, I'm happy it exists, it enriched my life in such a subtle way,
this is the kind of content that the internet was made for in my opinion.

~~~
1337biz
So... what other alternative ways to live your life did you discover? Love
that idea!

~~~
bbrian
I'm working towards owning no shoes with laces. Between my Dubarry boat/deck
shoes and a pair of laceless Converse, my other shoes are eschewed!

~~~
spqr0a1
Have to recommend Blundstone boots. I was concerned that the elastic would
wear out but it's been years and looks like it will outlast the tread. They
are durable, grip well, waterproof easily, and dressy enough for semi-formal
occasions. Warm enough for winter and cool enough for summer too!

~~~
wwalser
Bought my first pair 4 weeks ago. I recently relocated from Sydney (somewhat
ironic) to NY. I found a recommendation on reddit and couldn't be happier.

Orthogonal to shoes and such, I find that I end up searching for
recommendations for products on reddit as opposed to a store or review engine.
I prefer to know what enthusiasts think rather than a bunch of randoms who
have voted based on a star system.

Are there are sites that just list products and have only a single
recommendation for each category? "This is _the_ boot to buy if you are
looking for cold weather boots. It's a good combination of warm, waterproof
and stylish." That's basically what I was after and exactly what reddit
delivered after some searching through relevant subreddits.

~~~
gp7
[http://thewirecutter.com/](http://thewirecutter.com/) comes close

~~~
twblalock
And its sister site, thesweethome.com, for housewares and other non-electronic
stuff.

Both of these sites are so popular that their recommendations are usually the
top seller in their respective Amazon categories.

------
VonGuard
This man changed how I tie my shoes. This sounds small, but frankly, it was
one of the largest changes I have ever made to my life.

Why? Because I learned to tie my shoes at the age of 5 or 6. It's something
that was ingrained into my bones. A physical memory, an act that was
undeniably of the flesh, not of the mind.

Changing muscle memory is really tough, especially when it's 30 year old
muscle memory. But the double Ian knot was so compelling and easy, I actually
made the effort over the course of about a year to make it my standard knot.
It was really hard at first. I felt like a 3-year-old trying to learn how to
finger paint for the first time. It got easier over time, but it really was
one of the most difficult things I've had to change about myself, ever. It was
like changing from brushing your teeth with your dominant hand to your less
dominant hand.

And yet, it was worth it. The double Ian knot is incredible. Something so
simple and yet made such a change in my life...

~~~
DanTheManPR
Me too - I've used Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot for the last ten years or so,
and never since have my shoelaces ever come undone, nor have they ever been
difficult to untie. It's a small thing, but it will benefit me in a minor way
for the rest of my life.

~~~
nicoles
Totally agreed, I learned Ian's secure knot 10 or so years ago, and not only
do my shoes never come undone, but I've also taught a whole pile of people it
as well!

------
sbierwagen
Ah! This page was on the front page of somethingawful a good ten years ago. At
the time I had shoes with particularly slippery laces, so I started using
Ian's Secure Knot, and never looked back:
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm)

~~~
aidos
Oh interesting! I've used the Ian knot for about 10 years now and hadn't even
considered looking for anything else.

Quite a lot of sailing has given me a good appreciation of knots. It's amazing
how (when you're doing a lot of rope work) you can get a real instinctive
sense of the pressures on a knot and how to create the best knot for the
situation. In ocean racing there are places you have unusual needs (like
tethering the running backstays to the cars while you adjust the angles).

Believe it or (k)not, there a branch of mathematical topology dedicated to
knot theory.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_theory)

[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm)

------
corysama
I'll vouch for the "Ian Knot". Throughout my life I had to double-tie the
classic shoelace knot or else it would come loose a some point during the day.
Then I tried the Ian Knot. It is significantly faster and easier. And, now I
have some laced shoes that I just slip on because they stay tied for weeks
instead of hours.

[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I tried the Ian Knot, found it fiddly to tie. I use a standard knot by force
of habit or when I can't stand having unties, or the laces are long, I use a
Surgeons Knot.

The Surgeons Knot is just a standard shoelace tie with 2 slight modifications
- when you overlap the 2 sides of the lace you tuck the lace under twice.
This, like a Timber Hitch, creates much more contact area and thus much more
friction.

I have (not from that site) switched the way I tie a standard knot as I was
doing grannies instead of reef-knots. This seems to have prevented unwanted
unties.

~~~
withdavidli
vouch for the surgeons knot. watched the ted video for correctly tying shoe
laces. surgeon knot was only one more loop. i have shoes with rounded laces
that comes undone easily, this fixed the problem.

------
nom
I'm always fascinated with how deep some niche-topics are. I mean, it's just a
shoelace and very few people think about it at all. So cool!

Fun fact: searching for 'shoelace' on google puts this site on third place for
me, right after shoelace.com and the wikipedia entry.

edit: Ian Figgen is the inventor of the Ian knot that somebody else has posted
here. He has to be _really_ into shoelacing!

~~~
adrianN
Ian's site is a blast from the distant past when a majority of the websites on
the net were about super niche topics curated by some enthusiast.

------
dri_ft
One thing that's worth noting about the classic bow shoelace knot is that no-
one seems to know how to do them. The right way to do it is with the bow knot
reflected relative to the base knot below it, like a reef knot, rather than
oriented the same way, like a granny knot. I never knew this until a few years
ago and since I've started doing it, I've stopped needing to double-knot my
laces - they're secure enough for me with a single knot done properly. I
always try to explain this to people when I get a chance, and no-one else
seems to know about it, either.

I see there's a page about this on the site:
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm)

~~~
henrikschroder
I was taught how to tie my shoelaces by my granny, and sure enough, I was
doing granny knots, and I was frustrated with some shoes, because the
shoelaces would just come undone, and you'd have to double-tie the knot or
something.

Until, at the ripe old age of 32, when a friend tipped me about Ian's shoelace
site, and I finally learned how to tie my shoelaces properly.

It's a great example of not knowing what you don't know, because shoelaces,
right?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Same here, noted how someone tried their leaves as it looked peculiar.
Realised I was effectively tying grannies, changed the direction of my second
loop; far more secure.

To me it's fascinating as it's something taught at a very early age, something
used nearly every day, yet something a lot people seem to do "wrong"
(inefficiently) by habit or ignorance.

But now my kids know and can suffer less unties, so that's good.

Similar thing for me, the "use a food packet as a bowl" trick (eg for
crisps/potatoe chips).

------
justifier
this site comes up often and it usually sparks conversations about shoelaces,
but i want to see the algorithms(o) and database schema

the consistency in the images, and the seemingly exhaustive quantity, implies
they were algorithmically generated

i would love if each image had a build array that documented how to draw the
laces using a minimalist(i) notation representing connections and nodes

this paired with simple client side code could have the images created
dynamically with less work for the server and less data being sent across
wire.. a random photo(ii) from the 'dis' method(iii) was 2.7K

instead it seems the server either stores or creates html with the images hard
coded and serves up the images associated with the method, though the image
file names are encouraging of a meticulously normalised underlying abstraction

i think an appreciation, either conscious or unconscious, for this underlying
abstraction is part of the attraction to this project

(o)
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/2trillionmethods.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/2trillionmethods.htm)

(i)
[http://www.fieggen.com/software/info.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/software/info.htm)

(ii)
[http://www.fieggen.com/la/ya-d+.png](http://www.fieggen.com/la/ya-d+.png)

(iii)
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/displayshoelacing.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/displayshoelacing.htm)

~~~
profshoelace
Like you, I'd _love_ to pass a simple minimalist string to a Javascript code
to render images client-side. My more recent "Create-a-Lace" does just that,
dynamically generating all the .svg images using client-side Javascript.
However, I've yet to see browsers correctly render shadows, without which the
diagrams lose depth. When that hurdle is overcome, I may well extend this
concept to all lacing methods.

In the meantime, I do indeed need to resort to some 600+ individual .png
images in order to render each of the 50+ lacing methods with their many
variations and multiple numbers of eyelet pairs.

~~~
justifier
this is great, yeah i investigated the create a lace after i wrote the
comment, generalising that effort would seem to save you some server
resources!

honestly, i think you should consider working on some indirect educational
material

it seems your shoelace site encourages appreciation for mathematical
abstractions in both those that study them and those unaware

you've created one of those rare works wherein anyone who encounters it speaks
highly of it

great work on the site!

------
kome
I have an adblock (ublock); I almost never clicked an ad willingly in my life.

But on that website I clicked almost all the banners.

This website is awesome. Designers, "content creators" and advertisers should
learn from him.

~~~
krrrh
I agree, and it's also amazing to me to see how well he's maintained the site
in the ten years since I first saw it, including a tongue-in-cheek, clickbait-
style granny knot celebs page[1], that produced a laugh-out-loud moment for
me.

[1]
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknottingcelebs.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknottingcelebs.htm)

------
coob
This is how I do 'Ian's knot':
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbaHxsilsKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbaHxsilsKI)

------
squiggy22
I love sites like this, that prove content wins out over everything else.

------
marsrover
I found this site a few months ago and it has been so great. I wear boat shoes
everyday and if you've ever worn boat shoes, you know they don't like to stay
tied. Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot keeps my shoes tied for weeks at a time (at a
minimum).

------
SwellJoe
I love sites like this (and this one in particular). I remember stumbling on
it many years ago, maybe a decade or more. No idea how I found it, but the
secure knot is useful knowledge that's stuck with me all those years, and has
come in handy many times. I don't really care anything about shoelaces, but
I'm happy someone else does and built an enduring monument to that enthusiasm.

------
slavik81
Last year, I learned Ian's Secure Knot[1]. It took under an hour of study and
practice once, and my life was slightly improved every day from then on. Never
had my laces come untied since then. Great ROI.

[1]
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm)

~~~
mml
Same. Taught my kids to use this knot too. I never have to re-tie their shoes.
I think this knot is easier to teach and tie than the classic knot.

------
pmoriarty
I like the Turquoise Turtle Shoelace Knot.[1]

It's almost exactly like the "standard" shoelace knot I've used most of my
life, but with just an extra tuck, and it virtually never unintentionally gets
untied. It's fast, easy to put on and easy to take off. Highly recommended.

I also like Perry's Perpetual Knot.[2][3][4][5][6]

The idea behind it is that you only ever tie it once, and then only ever have
to loosen and tighten it rather than re-tie it.

On one pair of shoes, I had Perry's Perpetual Knot adjusted so that I never
even had to loosen or tighten it either. From then on I'd just slip my shoes
on and off without needing to adjust it or re-tie it.

[1] -
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/turquoiseturtleknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/turquoiseturtleknot.htm)

[2] -
[http://web.archive.org/web/20051203081429/http://web.ukonlin...](http://web.archive.org/web/20051203081429/http://web.ukonline.co.uk/glennbarcham/Shoe/knot1.htm#per)

[3] -
[https://s24.postimg.org/ng1fp6lj9/perrys_perpetual_knot.png](https://s24.postimg.org/ng1fp6lj9/perrys_perpetual_knot.png)

[4] -
[https://i.imgsafe.org/bee20e4850.png](https://i.imgsafe.org/bee20e4850.png)

[5] - [http://i.imgur.com/mzyXuet.png](http://i.imgur.com/mzyXuet.png)

[6] - I'm uploading the instruction image to a bunch of image hosting sites,
so hopefully the instructions will be available "perpetually", since
archive.org doesn't even seem to have saved them.

------
to3m
I do the standard shoelace knot the other way round from his page (
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/standardknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/standardknot.htm)).
I bet I've saved at least 1 minute over the past 35 years from doing this.

1\. start with left over right starting knot

2\. hold loop in left hand, thumb and index finger

3\. feed other lace round the front, holding it with right thumb+index finger,
then round the back, then through the hole, so it lands on the pad of your
left thumb

4\. use left thumb and right index finger to push/pull loop through hole, then
grab it with left middle finger as it comes through (your thumb can remain in
place)

5\. use right thumb and 2nd/3rd phalange of right index finger to hold other
loop (you'll probably be in roughly this position already by now)

6\. well done, you've caught the rabbit :) (In this story, it does _not_
escape.) Now pull its ears.

(If you'd rather have the loop in your right hand, no problem, but start with
a right-over-left knot in step 1 I suppose.)

This is a superior approach, I think, because of how the lace meets your
stationary thumb at the end of step 3 rather than your stationary finger,
allowing a smoother step 4. I'm struggling to explain this coherently but
basically you need multiple digits on the _other_ side in order to quickly
move your grip on the loop from one side of the main knot to the other. But if
it's your thumb on the other side, you've only got the one digit...

(Maybe I just got it wrong while trying it out, though? This is after all
literally the habit of a lifetime. The above is just based on my trying to
figure out why the other way round felt inefficient, even after taking into
account the basic difficulty of actually doing it in the first place.)

~~~
profshoelace
Well described! The fingers are indeed in superior positions for grabbing the
bunny ears.

------
tugberkk
I really think websites should be like this. Informative and easy to use
without bloating javascript behind.

------
hawkice
He is featured prominently in David Rees' Going Deep episode about how to tie
your shoelaces. That whole program is a gem, and people like this should be
celebrated.

------
mistersquid
Nicholson Baker's _The Mezzanine_ is a meditation on innovations of the post-
industrial world, the inanities of corporate culture, and a humorous look at a
somewhat neurotic obsessive who identifies points of personal hygiene as major
milestones in his personal development.

A quote from my well-worn copy:

    
    
      | I tried to call up some sample memories of shoe-tying to
      | determine whether one shoe tended to come untied more often
      | than another. What I found was that I did not retain a single
      | speciﬁc engram of tying a shoe, or a pair of shoes, that dated
      | from any later than when I was four or ﬁve years old, the age at
      | which I had ﬁrst learned the skill. Over twenty years of empiri-
      | cal data were lost forever, a complete blank. But I suppose this
      | is often true of moments of life that are remembered as major
      | advances: the discovery is the crucial thing, not its repeated
      | later applications. As it happened, the ﬁrst three major advances
      | in my life--and I will list all the advances here--
      | 
      | 1. shoe-tying
      | 2. pulling up on Xs
      | 3. steadying hand against sneaker when tying
      | 4. brushing tongue as well as teeth
      | 5. putting on deodorant after I was fully dressed
      | 6. discovering that sweeping was fun
      | 7. ordering a rubber stamp with my address on it to make bill-
      |    paying more efficient
      | 8. deciding that brain cells ought to die
      | 
      | --have to do with shoe-tying, but I don't think that this fact is
      | very unusual.
    

The novel begins as the narrator, Howie, returns to work after purchasing new
shoelaces to replace the ones which broke as he was tying his shoes.

The novel is fantastic if you enjoy meditative digressions regarding everyday
inventions. I recommend it highly.

EDIT: add recommendation, fix OCR mistakes, punctuation.

------
karthikp
Never seen someone so passionate about shoelaces. It's great that a site like
this exists. Wonder what other niche sites I'm missing out on.

------
dandev
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/cialacing.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/cialacing.htm)

This is fascinating: Coldwar era CIA agents lacing their shoes as "a form of
covert signalling, using straight segments interspersed with one or more
visible crossovers at different positions."

------
dkbrk
I've been using the Mega Ian Knot
([http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/megaianknot.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/megaianknot.htm))
for the past 6 months or so.

It's the most secure of the knots and is visually appealing, but is somewhat
tricky to tie. I've got a fair amount of experience with knots, but it took me
about an hour of practice to be able to tie it reliably and (relatively)
quickly.

I'm not necessarily recommending this to other people; in the effectiveness-
difficulty tradeoff, it carries a fairly substantial difficulty penalty that
probably isn't really worth it. But there's something about using the
__ultimate __shoelace knot that appeals to me, so I thought I 'd mention it.

~~~
tucaz
That's how I tie plastic bags. I think I learned it some twelve years ago from
a friend.

Its really secure and, from my point of view, really easy and simple to do.
However, Im trying to tech it to my wife and for some reason it seems really
hard for people not used to it to grasp and be able to make it in a competent
way.

------
jamesmccann
One of the realest sites ever made. Cheers Ian for your fantastic example of
how the internet should work.

------
profshoelace
Thanks, everyone, for stopping by and visiting my shoelace website. Fun to see
that it is still highly respected, and from folks such as yourselves, that's
pretty cool!

~~~
godDLL
It has been said elsewhere, but I want you to notice this: YOU MAKE THE
INTERWEBS

Because of you, and people like you I'm proud to have grown up not in any one
country, city, block or street; but on the Internet.

~~~
profshoelace
Thanks for your kind words. It is mind-blowing to share knowledge with people
from all around the world. Hopefully my humble website remains visible amidst
the ever-growing hubbub of business that the internet has since become.

------
stevewillows
I used this site to learn about the Army Lacing [1] for a pair of boots that
would normally take ten minutes to take off when I get home.

It seems silly, but learning an improved lacing method has not only saved me a
lot of time in a given day, but its prevented unnecessary stress. The method
gives a fantastic, tight fit that's incredibly easy to loosen.

[1]
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/armylacing.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/armylacing.htm)

------
Ianvdl
This is a fun page:
[http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/linking.htm](http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/linking.htm)

------
antfarm
There is also a book on the mathematics of lacing your shoes:

The Shoelace Book: A Mathematical Guide to the Best (And Worst) Ways to Lace
Your Shoes

[https://www.amazon.com/Shoelace-Book-Mathematical-Guide-
Wors...](https://www.amazon.com/Shoelace-Book-Mathematical-Guide-
Worst/dp/0821839330)

------
AndreiVajnaII
I've found this site something like 10 years ago and changed how I tie my
shoes. I do a double loop thing and I never have to stop to tie them back
because they came loose. Whenever I see a soccer player stop to tie his laces
I laugh and say that that should be the first thing the coaches teach and this
site would be a great resource for that.

------
nommm-nommm
I came across this site at least 5 years ago and I learned from it I've been
tying my shoes incorrectly my entire life. I always wondered why my shoe laces
needed retying multiple times a day, even with double knotting. I had to
relearn how to tie my shoes and it's been a significant improvement in my
life, as odd as that sounds.

------
Aardwolf
I lace my shoes mostly only once: right after buying them. Then I just put
foot in/out of it like that. Convenient :)

------
Tyrannosaur
!! I have found it again! Thank you! Because of a "share some cool website
every day" program in jr high, I used this website and had the zipper lacing
on my shoes for a long time. And to this day I only ever use the double Ian
knot any more - but I could never find this site again. Here it is! :)

------
NelsonMinar
Fun tech crossover, the word "aglet". In addition to the shoelace word, it was
also the name of a Java mobile agents framework from IBM ~1997.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglets)

~~~
wolfgang42
I once explained to a co-worker that we needed to buy a packet of "ethernet
aglets." They knew exactly what I was talking about, and to this day I still
don't know what the actual name for the things is.

~~~
profshoelace
My guess, based on the similarity to aglets, would be coax terminators?

------
miguelrochefort
I've recently stopped lacing my shoes after discovering Lace Anchors:

[http://www.laceanchors.com](http://www.laceanchors.com)

I personally don't use them (too expensive) and use a knot instead.

I haven't noticed a difference in fit or comfort for casual shoes.

------
rdiddly
This fills me with anxiety - "Oh my god, are there superior knots and lacing
patterns out there that I've been missing out on?!?! Where will I find the
time to learn them?!?! Will I do like I often do, give up and revert to
ORDINARY KNOTS?!¿!"

------
hoprocker
Dammit, I need a crib sheet that puts the tying steps all on one page -- it's
a real pain stopping in between steps to scroll down, then trying to get my
fingers back into the correct position.

------
deadlycrayon
Shoutout to the checkerboard laces I sported in middle school thanks to this
site.

------
KTastrophy
This guy is awesome. Back in undergrad, I started an online boutique for hard
to find shoes and he let me reproduce some of his content on my site. At the
time, I thought it would help with SEO.

------
spraak
Wow, glad to find this! I'd somehow come across the Ian Knot about 20 years
ago (is that possible?!) and have been tying my shoes (and anything requiring
the same knot) that way since.

~~~
quink
There was a fairly widely shared video EXE floating around for a bit more than
twenty years, quite certain it was one of the first videos I watched on my
Windows PC and I still remember it to this day.

~~~
profshoelace
That would have been my "IAN-KNOT.COM" executable animation, which was first
built in Jul-1993 and then optimised in Feb-1994, and which was uploaded to
various BBSs (as we did in the years before The Internet.) I should put that
program on my website for old times' sake!

------
craigds
Apparently the way I've always tied my laces (the only way I've ever known) is
the Ian knot. I had no idea that's different than what most people do. Good to
know!

------
kevin_thibedeau
He's really missed out on the chance to sell a ton of laces.

------
thanatropism
I learned to tie my shoelaces as a grown man from this website.

------
Kluny
I remember in grade 7, 2002ish before reddit was invented and the internet was
discoverable, I somehow found this site and spent several days poring through
it.

------
Cozumel
I never knew there were so many ways to tie shoelaces! In fairness though,
it's not something I've ever thought about either.

------
davesque
I kinda have a soft spot for sites like this that look like they were made in
the 90's. Respect for the old web.

------
obstinate
Oh yeah, I learned how to tie my shoelaces properly on this site. Probably saw
it five or ten years ago.

------
andybak
I was disturbingly excited to discover why my laces have been coming undone
for 44 years.

------
stickfigure
My god. How could I have been doing something so simple wrong for 40+ years.

------
k__
I abandoned shoes with laces about 10 years ago. Only got such with zippers
(boots) or elastic straps left (sneakers). Probably saved me a few days of
life since then ;)

------
stickperson
What methods do people prefer for boots?

------
rongway
i read this as 'Iran's shoelace site' whoops

