Using a lucet fork to make cordage has long been my go-to no thought, eyes-free fidget. In fact, I had my dad help make my one back when I was a teenager, though it was way too big for my hands and I’ve since gifted it along.
Let’s run through some basics, then get to some nerdy comparison testing and next-level planning and making skills.
STARTING I most often just grab a small ball of thread and turn the whole thing into cord in one go, cutting and refinishing pieces to length as I describe later, but if you want to make a piece to a certain length only, you will need to cut a piece of thread or yarn nine times longer than you want the finished piece to be. Or ten times longer, if you think there’s any chance of it breaking while working or just want to hedge your bets without wasting too much. To start, hold the lucet fork in your non-dominant hand, anchor the end of your working thread with that hand, and wrap the working thread (toward the ball/bobbin/coil) in a figure-eight around the tines, first across the front in the direction of your dominant hand. With a second strand across the front of the working-side tine, pinch the lower strand and lift it up and over the working thread and the top of that tine, making sure the working thread doesn’t go with it. Then rotate the lucet ninety degree toward you non dominant shoulder, and repeat.
FASTER METHOD There are other methods that yield the same result, many of which do not include rotating the lucet fork. And, perhaps more importantly, that have the working thread extending from the top of the cord itself, at the center of the tines, as the default ending position between each stitch. However, I find these methods slow and frustrating. Instead, I prefer to end with my working thread in the position below. How I achieve this is as follows: I start to do a stitch the “normal” way, lifting a lower loop over the working thread and tine. Then I pull the working thread straight out to my dominant side. Then, for the next stitch, my non dominant hand rotates the lucet, my dominant forefinger and thumb reach under the working thread as and grabs the next, now on the dominant side, pulls the last stitch, now on the non dominant side, tight to the cord being built, pops over the tine and working thread, and pulls straight to the side again. Not only do I find this method faster and much less likely to develop tension issues that the more commonly taught method, but I can also doing it without needing to look at what I’m doing, leaving my free to also socialize, read, or watch something while making cord.
TENSIONING For any method, you may find it very helpful to use some method of tensioning on your dominant hand which does not require controlling it through pressure or holding the thread in any way that can cause finger or hand cramps over time. I tension mine by looping it as shown in the picture below. With this setup, it is very easy to reach under the working thread with my forefinger and thumb to do each stitch as described above, and I can increase or decrease the tension to get it just right by adjusting how many times it wraps about my pinky. For example, with grabbier threads, humidity, or damper skin, I’m often using one wrap. But with smooth thread or very dry conditions, I might use up to four. The tension goal is snug enough that my working hand doesn’t have to move any further from the lucet than it has to in order to tighten each stitch, but I also don’t have to give any thought to there being enough in place as I keep building. Or, less verbosely, gentle but noticeable and reliable tension. As far as tension of the actual cord goes, my default goal is “firm but gentle” tension. However, each base material thread/yarn is going to have some personality here. If it’s very stiff, like the largest linen thread I tried below, then giving up on a firm tension was nessicary as each stitch loosened as I was working the next one. It turned out fine. If your material has any stretch to it, like most wool yarns (wool sewing thread, less so), then you need to be extra careful to focus on the gentle part and not over tighten it. If you do, you will grind down to where you are just wrestling with every stitch and risking breaks.
COLLECTION & MANAGEMENT One thing to consider as you get into the swing of things is how best to manage the cord length that is produced. I have tried several easy ways over the years, and ended up with this method I’ll likely stick to forever. The benefits of it are that I waste minimal time, the amount of finished cord dangling down doesn’t increase slowly as I make more cord, and the finished cord doesn’t get remotely tangled, making wining it into a ball or skein when I’m done very easy. For the first few feet or so, I simply wind the cord onto the handle or lower portion of the lucet itself. This happens naturally to some degree from the process of turning the lucet fork, but I also stop every few minutes and spend a few seconds working the built up bulk smoothly down the wrap. Just make sure than the spiral is happening in the direction it naturally does when working. Once I’ve pretty much maxed out that space, I stop, unwrap it from the lucet, re-anchor it just below my working area, and wrap the wrest now left hanging around a bobbin. The anchor knot I do which seems to work best is that, holding the cord in place an inch or so below where I’m working or where the tines meet the stem, I wrap the produced cord toward my dominant side and around the back, then cross up over that and around the back, then cross down over just that last wrap, holding that in place with my non dominant thumb. Then I make a loop with the trailing cord and twist it over itself four times, or two full rotations of the loop. I then simply pop that over the stem of the lucet and pull to tighten it down, not removing my stabilizing thumb until it’s quite snug. The rest, as I said, can then be wrapped onto a bobbin, and then anchored with a double half-hitch a few inches down from the bottom of the lucet to keep it from unraveling, dragging, or bumping into you too much. (Yes, I have sensory issues lol.)
TRANSFERRING TO A NEW LUCET If you want to transfer working from one lucet fork to another, it’s as easy and sliding the new fork up along the other, under both working loops, then sliding the old one back out. Loosening the loops first, transferring then tightening them back down can make it even easier.
HOW TO RECOVER DROPPED WORK Less straightforward, but not by much, is what to do if your project falls off the tines entirely. First of all, don’t panic. And absolutely don’t think that you need to rip out your progress so far and start again. Just pick it up and gently, carefully, tug at things until you figure out how to make both loops larger. From there, figure out which loop is tightened by pulling the working thread and start with the other one. Take that other loop which, when pulled, only tightens the other loop, and place it over the dominant side tine. Do a little more gentle tugging, and make sure that the side of that loop which can slide through the cord, effecting the other look, is on the back of that tine. Then, take the second loop., and see which side of it moves through the cord when the working thread is pulled. Place the loop over the non dominant tine, placing the moving side you just identified on the front. From here, you should be able to get right back into it, or, if you’re doing my suggested faster method, you can do just the first step of a stitch, pulling to the side without rotating the lucet, to get back to the base position for that.
HOW TO RECOVER TIGHTENED OR PARTIALLY UNRAVELLED WORK If your project falls off the tines and gets tightened down or slightly unraveled, it’s just as salvageable. Just grab a yarn need, bodkin, or other implement that is precise but not too sharp, and start poking at the end. The first step is making sure that the working yarn is extending from the center of the cord, with two very small bumps/loops on either side. Next, try to see which of those loops was the most recently made by the working thread, or you can watch very carefully to figure this out as you unravel one more stitch. Take that most recent stitch, and make it much larger using your tool, very careful to no pull against the other side or unravel the cord further at all. A very firm pinch can accomplish this, or you could use a fibula or stitch marker through the lesser/secondary loop to keep it from pulling through while you get the first/primary loop expanded. Once that is big enough to fit your hand through, go ahead and expand the second loop as well using the tool, until both are generously big enough to fit back onto your lucet. From there, just repeat the process for a dropped project.
BROKEN THREAD I won’t lie, having the working thread break while making cord is extremely frustrating, but you can recover from it, provided you have some extra thread length for your goal cord length. First, if needed, unravel enough cord that you have a good 2-3 spanns (the full spread of your hand) of thread freed between it’s working anchor on the tines and the broken end. Go back to the last walkthrough on recovering that as needed. Then, with everything situated, take the other broken end, the one that still leads to the ball of thread you are working from, and place it down through your working side loop, giving it a finger’s length or less of tail. Do one stitch, rotating the lucet fork normally. Move this inserted thread to the back and repeat for a thumb’s width or more, essentially trapping the spliced-in thread inside the center of the produced cord. Then, when you only have a finger’s length of the old thread left or you’ve just gone far enough, tighten down that stitch so both are extending from the center of the cord. Pick up the fresh, long thread, and do the next stitch using it as the working thread. Turn, keeping the remains of the old thread to the back (center of the cord) as you had before you switched. Tensioning will be tricky for about three stitches, but just take your time, poke around and try tugging wherever looks likely to tighten things down correctly until things get back to normal. I promise it doesn’t take long. Once you’ve done about a thumb’s width with the new working thread, trim off both broken tails, and you’re back on track. The join won’t be too visible, but it will be a bit thicker and stiffer, so bear that in mind if your intended use for the cord has considerations about that.
ENDING: It’s time to tie off when you have about a spann of thread left, and/or the tensioning loops around your pinky are no longer functional because the end of the thread as caught up with them. To tie off, first tighten down the last stitch while still on the lucet, so that the tail on thread extends from the center of the cord. Then, carefully check which loop does not connect to that tail directly. Take that lesser loop, and stick the loop that does connect to the thread tail through it, pulling that greater loop (and carefully making sure the tail doesn’t disappear) until the lesser loop is fully tightened down to the cord. Lastly, lass the thread tail through the remaining (greater) loop, and tighten it down as well. Now neither end will fray!
FINISHING CUT LENGTHS: You can still have two nicely finished ends that don’t unravel when you cut a length off of a lucet cord. First, whichever side you want to be a specific length, make sure to cut it 1-2 thumb’s widths longer that needed. Cut it, then unravel 1-2 spanns of loose thread. Then just go through the process for recovering tightened work, then the process for finishing, both described above.
SPEED, SHRINKAGE, & MATERIALS Now, let’s get to the speed, shrinkage, and material comparison tests I alluded to earlier. Recently, I found myself want to feel like this craft was a little more predicable for me, instead of something I felt I had to make, crossing my fingers the material would work and that I had enough thread and time. To do this, I started with set lengths of thread to test shrinkage. In an effort to shift my crafting more and more in line with historical production practices, I used my body measurements as the metric. Each piece that I length tested started as nine arm spans (favner, which for me is about 65”) long. So, each started at roughly 585”. Almost all turned out to by a 9:1 ratio for head length to finished cordage. Stretchiness proved to be the only factor in this equation, within my limited sample test, not the gauge of thread, which surprised me. Speed was most heavily dictated by the gauge of the thread I was working with and how much a had to slow down because of tension issues, to get past bumps or irregularities in thickness, or how scared I was that the thread would break again if it already had once.
Here is that list:
Thick Natural Linen: Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 50” in an hour, remaining 15” in 22 minutes. 65” total, 82 minutes total, so 5.4’ in 1.3 hours. 1” made per minute and a quarter. Workability: Noticeably stiff: it slowed me down a little, I had to work from a coil, rather than a ball, and consistent tension was a bit tricky since the last knot kept wanting to loosen.
Brown Single-Ply Wool: Shrinkage: Roughly 8:1, and the finished cord still has some bounce and stretch. Speed: 53” in one hour, a further 18 in an additional 20 minutes. 71” and 80 minutes total. Workability: Regular breakage was an issue, as was irregular size of the thread, yielding irregular cordage. It also stretched, both the thread and cord, which was odd to contend with.
White Silk (Single-Ply Bulky): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: Done in 55 minutes, yielded 65”. Workability: Exceptionally fast and even, yielded an oddly oval cord. The process did unspin the thread a little, but not enough to actually create breakage, thinning, or fraying/fluff issues.
White Silk (Two-Ply Slender): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 44” in an hour, the other 21” in 35 minutes. Workability. This is my go-to. Easy, fast, even, and strong. I did have to stop every yard or so to re-spin the dangling ball of thread when the two plies got practically separated across the tines of the lucet fork.
Slenderest Natural Sewing Thread: Shrinkage: Just a little under 9:1 thread to produced cord. (In the direction of 8:1.) Speed: 16.5” in an hour. 70” total. Workability: I had some issues with the fiber bunching into knots, one of which caused a break. Waxing it reduced the bunching, but made it too sticky. Baby powder helped considerably with the beeswax stickiness.
Medium Linen Thread: Shrinkage: Just barely under 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 39.5” inches in the first hour, the other 29” in another 50 minutes. Workability: This was the easiest linen to work with; one pass over wax, and then dusted with baby powder. This is the linen thread weight I had on hand for sewing leather.
Red Machine-Spun Single-Ply Wool: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: Very similar to use to the larger single-ply silk, only grippier, so I had to wrestle with it rather more. And, like the brown wool, the finished cord stretches.
Bright Red Wool Sewing Thread: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: It did un-spin over the tines right away, but was otherwise nice to work with. Not too stretchy, uneven, or lumpy, but it dead break on me once.
Maroon Silk Thread: Speed: 10” in one hour. I failed to track this further as it was extremely tedious and I was using up the end of a bobbin I didn’t feel like unspooling, measuring, inevitably untangling, and respelling in order to use. Workability: Like I said, very tedious, but no other complaints. The resulting cord was remarkably stiff.
DOUBLE-CORDING I chose this last piece, the maroon silk sewing thread, to test taking finished cord and treating it as the thread, essentially sending it through the process repeatedly. This double-cording got much harder to do on subsequent rounds, since the surface is less smooth. It is, however, great at exponentially compacting the length of thread, especially in a second or third round. I would not, however, recommend using this as a means to store or transport thread you intend to unravel and use later; a simple bobbin, such as a short stick, is much more practical in every conceivable way.
OTHER FANCINESS Lucet cordage can get much more intricate and varied than what I’ve presented here. Speaking just for what can be done with the craft: multiple colors, helix, flat, inserted beads, and more are all options, and can be very beautiful and decorative. However, these options exceed me interests, intended uses and needs, and historical purview as far as I’ve been able to document, so I have yet to try any of it.
USES FOR LUCET CORDAGE What I have personally used lucet cord for: -Lacing up the front of fitted kirtles -Lacing up the sides of 12th century Bliaut dresses -Tying on pattens -Shoulder strap for a Hedeby bag -Closing dozens of small drawstring pouches, like my sewing kit -Tying Jorvic and Dublin caps closed under my chin -Trying single-point coats like the female Viking style closed -As the necklace cord for many pendants, event tokens, and talismans -Modern shoelaces -Many applications where I need string, cord, or ties/belts where something nicer and less scratchy than twine would be nice.
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION Because lucet cord is, as far as I’m aware always, made with organic material, it doesn’t survive well over the centuries, and what little extant cordage does survive comes from specifically preservative conditions. Furthermore, when we do find surviving cord, it can be hard to tell if it was made using a lucet or other similar methods. What we do have more concrete evidence for are whip cording and finger-loop braiding, which yield functionally similar non-flat results, but through wholly different creation methods. When objects are found which could be used to create lucet cord, such as those found at Tyrol (Austria), Lund, and Norfolk, they are often classified as Unidentified Find Objects, or UFOs. While their use can be extrapolated, it can be impossible to prove when no textiles survive attached. Some of the most promising of these finds come from Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The six objects grouped together from these finds date roughly between late 10th and late 11th centuries, and bear striking similarities in design. All are carved from bone, with the material carved away at the narrower end of the material to create two tapered prongs, either set on opposite sides of the base or set together at one longer side of the bone’s oval shape. A majority of these objects are hollow tubes, allowing he cord to pass through the gap when worked. These objects are generally 43mm tall x 22mm wide, with variation large and smaller, but not by terribly much. The Tyrol finds, also considered Knitting Nancies by early archeologists, are dated between late antiquity and the 14th century, and sadly specificity is impossible due to circumstanced of the excavation location. In contrast with the other finds, those at Tyrol have two pins are metal and set atop a piece of bone or horn with only small hole drilled in the bases. Surviving objects that might be lucets are often decorated with carved patterns, most commonly circles, dots, and sets of parallel or zig-zagged lines. Essentially, I was not able to find concrete proof that lucet cord was produces or used in Viking-age Scandinavia, but find it fun to make and perfect for many uses, and so will likely continue having it as a central part of my crafting endeavors.
Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
NEXT TIME Down the road, I want to try comparing Z twist and S twist yarns, both single and plied, to see how that compares when using my preferred method of production. I also want to try to find (or make, though I currently hate spinning) some two-ply, sock-weight, worsted spun wool to try, since I’d hope that a plied wool hand-spun yarn strong enough to warp a loom would hold up better to being make into lucet cord that the single ply I tried here while still being more historically accurate than machine-spun wools that I already know hold up through the process quite well. For now, I will mostly likely continue producing large amounts of blue silk lucet cord just for the enjoyment of the process, and eventual largess.
Happy crafting!
Sources: Phelps, Sara Rossi Daniel C. The Lucet Compendium: A Historical Exploration and Practical Guide, The Complete Anachronistic Issue No. 202, Fourth Quarter 2025. https://www.lrcrafts.it/lucet-cordmaking-history/ Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
Using a lucet fork to make cordage has long been my go-to no thought, eyes-free fidget. In fact, I had my dad help make my one back when I was a teenager, though it was way too big for my hands and I’ve since gifted it along.
Let’s run through some basics, then get to some nerdy comparison testing and next-level planning and making skills.
STARTING I most often just grab a small ball of thread and turn the whole thing into cord in one go, cutting and refinishing pieces to length as I describe later, but if you want to make a piece to a certain length only, you will need to cut a piece of thread or yarn nine times longer than you want the finished piece to be. Or ten times longer, if you think there’s any chance of it breaking while working or just want to hedge your bets without wasting too much. To start, hold the lucet fork in your non-dominant hand, anchor the end of your working thread with that hand, and wrap the working thread (toward the ball/bobbin/coil) in a figure-eight around the tines, first across the front in the direction of your dominant hand. With a second strand across the front of the working-side tine, pinch the lower strand and lift it up and over the working thread and the top of that tine, making sure the working thread doesn’t go with it. Then rotate the lucet ninety degree toward you non dominant shoulder, and repeat.
FASTER METHOD There are other methods that yield the same result, many of which do not include rotating the lucet fork. And, perhaps more importantly, that have the working thread extending from the top of the cord itself, at the center of the tines, as the default ending position between each stitch. However, I find these methods slow and frustrating. Instead, I prefer to end with my working thread in the position below. How I achieve this is as follows: I start to do a stitch the “normal” way, lifting a lower loop over the working thread and tine. Then I pull the working thread straight out to my dominant side. Then, for the next stitch, my non dominant hand rotates the lucet, my dominant forefinger and thumb reach under the working thread as and grabs the next, now on the dominant side, pulls the last stitch, now on the non dominant side, tight to the cord being built, pops over the tine and working thread, and pulls straight to the side again. Not only do I find this method faster and much less likely to develop tension issues that the more commonly taught method, but I can also doing it without needing to look at what I’m doing, leaving my free to also socialize, read, or watch something while making cord.
TENSIONING For any method, you may find it very helpful to use some method of tensioning on your dominant hand which does not require controlling it through pressure or holding the thread in any way that can cause finger or hand cramps over time. I tension mine by looping it as shown in the picture below. With this setup, it is very easy to reach under the working thread with my forefinger and thumb to do each stitch as described above, and I can increase or decrease the tension to get it just right by adjusting how many times it wraps about my pinky. For example, with grabbier threads, humidity, or damper skin, I’m often using one wrap. But with smooth thread or very dry conditions, I might use up to four. The tension goal is snug enough that my working hand doesn’t have to move any further from the lucet than it has to in order to tighten each stitch, but I also don’t have to give any thought to there being enough in place as I keep building. Or, less verbosely, gentle but noticeable and reliable tension. As far as tension of the actual cord goes, my default goal is “firm but gentle” tension. However, each base material thread/yarn is going to have some personality here. If it’s very stiff, like the largest linen thread I tried below, then giving up on a firm tension was nessicary as each stitch loosened as I was working the next one. It turned out fine. If your material has any stretch to it, like most wool yarns (wool sewing thread, less so), then you need to be extra careful to focus on the gentle part and not over tighten it. If you do, you will grind down to where you are just wrestling with every stitch and risking breaks.
COLLECTION & MANAGEMENT One thing to consider as you get into the swing of things is how best to manage the cord length that is produced. I have tried several easy ways over the years, and ended up with this method I’ll likely stick to forever. The benefits of it are that I waste minimal time, the amount of finished cord dangling down doesn’t increase slowly as I make more cord, and the finished cord doesn’t get remotely tangled, making wining it into a ball or skein when I’m done very easy. For the first few feet or so, I simply wind the cord onto the handle or lower portion of the lucet itself. This happens naturally to some degree from the process of turning the lucet fork, but I also stop every few minutes and spend a few seconds working the built up bulk smoothly down the wrap. Just make sure than the spiral is happening in the direction it naturally does when working. Once I’ve pretty much maxed out that space, I stop, unwrap it from the lucet, re-anchor it just below my working area, and wrap the wrest now left hanging around a bobbin. The anchor knot I do which seems to work best is that, holding the cord in place an inch or so below where I’m working or where the tines meet the stem, I wrap the produced cord toward my dominant side and around the back, then cross up over that and around the back, then cross down over just that last wrap, holding that in place with my non dominant thumb. Then I make a loop with the trailing cord and twist it over itself four times, or two full rotations of the loop. I then simply pop that over the stem of the lucet and pull to tighten it down, not removing my stabilizing thumb until it’s quite snug. The rest, as I said, can then be wrapped onto a bobbin, and then anchored with a double half-hitch a few inches down from the bottom of the lucet to keep it from unraveling, dragging, or bumping into you too much. (Yes, I have sensory issues lol.)
TRANSFERRING TO A NEW LUCET If you want to transfer working from one lucet fork to another, it’s as easy and sliding the new fork up along the other, under both working loops, then sliding the old one back out. Loosening the loops first, transferring then tightening them back down can make it even easier.
HOW TO RECOVER DROPPED WORK Less straightforward, but not by much, is what to do if your project falls off the tines entirely. First of all, don’t panic. And absolutely don’t think that you need to rip out your progress so far and start again. Just pick it up and gently, carefully, tug at things until you figure out how to make both loops larger. From there, figure out which loop is tightened by pulling the working thread and start with the other one. Take that other loop which, when pulled, only tightens the other loop, and place it over the dominant side tine. Do a little more gentle tugging, and make sure that the side of that loop which can slide through the cord, effecting the other look, is on the back of that tine. Then, take the second loop., and see which side of it moves through the cord when the working thread is pulled. Place the loop over the non dominant tine, placing the moving side you just identified on the front. From here, you should be able to get right back into it, or, if you’re doing my suggested faster method, you can do just the first step of a stitch, pulling to the side without rotating the lucet, to get back to the base position for that.
HOW TO RECOVER TIGHTENED OR PARTIALLY UNRAVELLED WORK If your project falls off the tines and gets tightened down or slightly unraveled, it’s just as salvageable. Just grab a yarn need, bodkin, or other implement that is precise but not too sharp, and start poking at the end. The first step is making sure that the working yarn is extending from the center of the cord, with two very small bumps/loops on either side. Next, try to see which of those loops was the most recently made by the working thread, or you can watch very carefully to figure this out as you unravel one more stitch. Take that most recent stitch, and make it much larger using your tool, very careful to no pull against the other side or unravel the cord further at all. A very firm pinch can accomplish this, or you could use a fibula or stitch marker through the lesser/secondary loop to keep it from pulling through while you get the first/primary loop expanded. Once that is big enough to fit your hand through, go ahead and expand the second loop as well using the tool, until both are generously big enough to fit back onto your lucet. From there, just repeat the process for a dropped project.
BROKEN THREAD I won’t lie, having the working thread break while making cord is extremely frustrating, but you can recover from it, provided you have some extra thread length for your goal cord length. First, if needed, unravel enough cord that you have a good 2-3 spanns (the full spread of your hand) of thread freed between it’s working anchor on the tines and the broken end. Go back to the last walkthrough on recovering that as needed. Then, with everything situated, take the other broken end, the one that still leads to the ball of thread you are working from, and place it down through your working side loop, giving it a finger’s length or less of tail. Do one stitch, rotating the lucet fork normally. Move this inserted thread to the back and repeat for a thumb’s width or more, essentially trapping the spliced-in thread inside the center of the produced cord. Then, when you only have a finger’s length of the old thread left or you’ve just gone far enough, tighten down that stitch so both are extending from the center of the cord. Pick up the fresh, long thread, and do the next stitch using it as the working thread. Turn, keeping the remains of the old thread to the back (center of the cord) as you had before you switched. Tensioning will be tricky for about three stitches, but just take your time, poke around and try tugging wherever looks likely to tighten things down correctly until things get back to normal. I promise it doesn’t take long. Once you’ve done about a thumb’s width with the new working thread, trim off both broken tails, and you’re back on track. The join won’t be too visible, but it will be a bit thicker and stiffer, so bear that in mind if your intended use for the cord has considerations about that.
ENDING: It’s time to tie off when you have about a spann of thread left, and/or the tensioning loops around your pinky are no longer functional because the end of the thread as caught up with them. To tie off, first tighten down the last stitch while still on the lucet, so that the tail on thread extends from the center of the cord. Then, carefully check which loop does not connect to that tail directly. Take that lesser loop, and stick the loop that does connect to the thread tail through it, pulling that greater loop (and carefully making sure the tail doesn’t disappear) until the lesser loop is fully tightened down to the cord. Lastly, lass the thread tail through the remaining (greater) loop, and tighten it down as well. Now neither end will fray!
FINISHING CUT LENGTHS: You can still have two nicely finished ends that don’t unravel when you cut a length off of a lucet cord. First, whichever side you want to be a specific length, make sure to cut it 1-2 thumb’s widths longer that needed. Cut it, then unravel 1-2 spanns of loose thread. Then just go through the process for recovering tightened work, then the process for finishing, both described above.
SPEED, SHRINKAGE, & MATERIALS Now, let’s get to the speed, shrinkage, and material comparison tests I alluded to earlier. Recently, I found myself want to feel like this craft was a little more predicable for me, instead of something I felt I had to make, crossing my fingers the material would work and that I had enough thread and time. To do this, I started with set lengths of thread to test shrinkage. In an effort to shift my crafting more and more in line with historical production practices, I used my body measurements as the metric. Each piece that I length tested started as nine arm spans (favner, which for me is about 65”) long. So, each started at roughly 585”. Almost all turned out to by a 9:1 ratio for head length to finished cordage. Stretchiness proved to be the only factor in this equation, within my limited sample test, not the gauge of thread, which surprised me. Speed was most heavily dictated by the gauge of the thread I was working with and how much a had to slow down because of tension issues, to get past bumps or irregularities in thickness, or how scared I was that the thread would break again if it already had once.
Here is that list:
Thick Natural Linen: Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 50” in an hour, remaining 15” in 22 minutes. 65” total, 82 minutes total, so 5.4’ in 1.3 hours. 1” made per minute and a quarter. Workability: Noticeably stiff: it slowed me down a little, I had to work from a coil, rather than a ball, and consistent tension was a bit tricky since the last knot kept wanting to loosen.
Brown Single-Ply Wool: Shrinkage: Roughly 8:1, and the finished cord still has some bounce and stretch. Speed: 53” in one hour, a further 18 in an additional 20 minutes. 71” and 80 minutes total. Workability: Regular breakage was an issue, as was irregular size of the thread, yielding irregular cordage. It also stretched, both the thread and cord, which was odd to contend with.
White Silk (Single-Ply Bulky): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: Done in 55 minutes, yielded 65”. Workability: Exceptionally fast and even, yielded an oddly oval cord. The process did unspin the thread a little, but not enough to actually create breakage, thinning, or fraying/fluff issues.
White Silk (Two-Ply Slender): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 44” in an hour, the other 21” in 35 minutes. Workability. This is my go-to. Easy, fast, even, and strong. I did have to stop every yard or so to re-spin the dangling ball of thread when the two plies got practically separated across the tines of the lucet fork.
Slenderest Natural Sewing Thread: Shrinkage: Just a little under 9:1 thread to produced cord. (In the direction of 8:1.) Speed: 16.5” in an hour. 70” total. Workability: I had some issues with the fiber bunching into knots, one of which caused a break. Waxing it reduced the bunching, but made it too sticky. Baby powder helped considerably with the beeswax stickiness.
Medium Linen Thread: Shrinkage: Just barely under 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 39.5” inches in the first hour, the other 29” in another 50 minutes. Workability: This was the easiest linen to work with; one pass over wax, and then dusted with baby powder. This is the linen thread weight I had on hand for sewing leather.
Red Machine-Spun Single-Ply Wool: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: Very similar to use to the larger single-ply silk, only grippier, so I had to wrestle with it rather more. And, like the brown wool, the finished cord stretches.
Bright Red Wool Sewing Thread: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: It did un-spin over the tines right away, but was otherwise nice to work with. Not too stretchy, uneven, or lumpy, but it dead break on me once.
Maroon Silk Thread: Speed: 10” in one hour. I failed to track this further as it was extremely tedious and I was using up the end of a bobbin I didn’t feel like unspooling, measuring, inevitably untangling, and respelling in order to use. Workability: Like I said, very tedious, but no other complaints. The resulting cord was remarkably stiff.
DOUBLE-CORDING I chose this last piece, the maroon silk sewing thread, to test taking finished cord and treating it as the thread, essentially sending it through the process repeatedly. This double-cording got much harder to do on subsequent rounds, since the surface is less smooth. It is, however, great at exponentially compacting the length of thread, especially in a second or third round. I would not, however, recommend using this as a means to store or transport thread you intend to unravel and use later; a simple bobbin, such as a short stick, is much more practical in every conceivable way.
OTHER FANCINESS Lucet cordage can get much more intricate and varied than what I’ve presented here. Speaking just for what can be done with the craft: multiple colors, helix, flat, inserted beads, and more are all options, and can be very beautiful and decorative. However, these options exceed me interests, intended uses and needs, and historical purview as far as I’ve been able to document, so I have yet to try any of it.
USES FOR LUCET CORDAGE What I have personally used lucet cord for: -Lacing up the front of fitted kirtles -Lacing up the sides of 12th century Bliaut dresses -Tying on pattens -Shoulder strap for a Hedeby bag -Closing dozens of small drawstring pouches, like my sewing kit -Tying Jorvic and Dublin caps closed under my chin -Trying single-point coats like the female Viking style closed -As the necklace cord for many pendants, event tokens, and talismans -Modern shoelaces -Many applications where I need string, cord, or ties/belts where something nicer and less scratchy than twine would be nice.
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION Because lucet cord is, as far as I’m aware always, made with organic material, it doesn’t survive well over the centuries, and what little extant cordage does survive comes from specifically preservative conditions. Furthermore, when we do find surviving cord, it can be hard to tell if it was made using a lucet or other similar methods. What we do have more concrete evidence for are whip cording and finger-loop braiding, which yield functionally similar non-flat results, but through wholly different creation methods. When objects are found which could be used to create lucet cord, such as those found at Tyrol (Austria), Lund, and Norfolk, they are often classified as Unidentified Find Objects, or UFOs. While their use can be extrapolated, it can be impossible to prove when no textiles survive attached. Some of the most promising of these finds come from Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The six objects grouped together from these finds date roughly between late 10th and late 11th centuries, and bear striking similarities in design. All are carved from bone, with the material carved away at the narrower end of the material to create two tapered prongs, either set on opposite sides of the base or set together at one longer side of the bone’s oval shape. A majority of these objects are hollow tubes, allowing he cord to pass through the gap when worked. These objects are generally 43mm tall x 22mm wide, with variation large and smaller, but not by terribly much. The Tyrol finds, also considered Knitting Nancies by early archeologists, are dated between late antiquity and the 14th century, and sadly specificity is impossible due to circumstanced of the excavation location. In contrast with the other finds, those at Tyrol have two pins are metal and set atop a piece of bone or horn with only small hole drilled in the bases. Surviving objects that might be lucets are often decorated with carved patterns, most commonly circles, dots, and sets of parallel or zig-zagged lines. Essentially, I was not able to find concrete proof that lucet cord was produces or used in Viking-age Scandinavia, but find it fun to make and perfect for many uses, and so will likely continue having it as a central part of my crafting endeavors.
Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
NEXT TIME Down the road, I want to try comparing Z twist and S twist yarns, both single and plied, to see how that compares when using my preferred method of production. I also want to try to find (or make, though I currently hate spinning) some two-ply, sock-weight, worsted spun wool to try, since I’d hope that a plied wool hand-spun yarn strong enough to warp a loom would hold up better to being make into lucet cord that the single ply I tried here while still being more historically accurate than machine-spun wools that I already know hold up through the process quite well. For now, I will mostly likely continue producing large amounts of blue silk lucet cord just for the enjoyment of the process, and eventual largess.
Happy crafting!
Sources: Phelps, Sara Rossi Daniel C. The Lucet Compendium: A Historical Exploration and Practical Guide, The Complete Anachronistic Issue No. 202, Fourth Quarter 2025. https://www.lrcrafts.it/lucet-cordmaking-history/ Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
Using a lucet fork to make cordage has long been my go-to no thought, eyes-free fidget. In fact, I had my dad help make my one back when I was a teenager, though it was way too big for my hands and I’ve since gifted it along.
Let’s run through some basics, then get to some nerdy comparison testing and next-level planning and making skills.
STARTING I most often just grab a small ball of thread and turn the whole thing into cord in one go, cutting and refinishing pieces to length as I describe later, but if you want to make a piece to a certain length only, you will need to cut a piece of thread or yarn nine times longer than you want the finished piece to be. Or ten times longer, if you think there’s any chance of it breaking while working or just want to hedge your bets without wasting too much. To start, hold the lucet fork in your non-dominant hand, anchor the end of your working thread with that hand, and wrap the working thread (toward the ball/bobbin/coil) in a figure-eight around the tines, first across the front in the direction of your dominant hand. With a second strand across the front of the working-side tine, pinch the lower strand and lift it up and over the working thread and the top of that tine, making sure the working thread doesn’t go with it. Then rotate the lucet ninety degree toward you non dominant shoulder, and repeat.
FASTER METHOD There are other methods that yield the same result, many of which do not include rotating the lucet fork. And, perhaps more importantly, that have the working thread extending from the top of the cord itself, at the center of the tines, as the default ending position between each stitch. However, I find these methods slow and frustrating. Instead, I prefer to end with my working thread in the position below. How I achieve this is as follows: I start to do a stitch the “normal” way, lifting a lower loop over the working thread and tine. Then I pull the working thread straight out to my dominant side. Then, for the next stitch, my non dominant hand rotates the lucet, my dominant forefinger and thumb reach under the working thread as and grabs the next, now on the dominant side, pulls the last stitch, now on the non dominant side, tight to the cord being built, pops over the tine and working thread, and pulls straight to the side again. Not only do I find this method faster and much less likely to develop tension issues that the more commonly taught method, but I can also doing it without needing to look at what I’m doing, leaving my free to also socialize, read, or watch something while making cord.
TENSIONING For any method, you may find it very helpful to use some method of tensioning on your dominant hand which does not require controlling it through pressure or holding the thread in any way that can cause finger or hand cramps over time. I tension mine by looping it as shown in the picture below. With this setup, it is very easy to reach under the working thread with my forefinger and thumb to do each stitch as described above, and I can increase or decrease the tension to get it just right by adjusting how many times it wraps about my pinky. For example, with grabbier threads, humidity, or damper skin, I’m often using one wrap. But with smooth thread or very dry conditions, I might use up to four. The tension goal is snug enough that my working hand doesn’t have to move any further from the lucet than it has to in order to tighten each stitch, but I also don’t have to give any thought to there being enough in place as I keep building. Or, less verbosely, gentle but noticeable and reliable tension. As far as tension of the actual cord goes, my default goal is “firm but gentle” tension. However, each base material thread/yarn is going to have some personality here. If it’s very stiff, like the largest linen thread I tried below, then giving up on a firm tension was nessicary as each stitch loosened as I was working the next one. It turned out fine. If your material has any stretch to it, like most wool yarns (wool sewing thread, less so), then you need to be extra careful to focus on the gentle part and not over tighten it. If you do, you will grind down to where you are just wrestling with every stitch and risking breaks.
COLLECTION & MANAGEMENT One thing to consider as you get into the swing of things is how best to manage the cord length that is produced. I have tried several easy ways over the years, and ended up with this method I’ll likely stick to forever. The benefits of it are that I waste minimal time, the amount of finished cord dangling down doesn’t increase slowly as I make more cord, and the finished cord doesn’t get remotely tangled, making wining it into a ball or skein when I’m done very easy. For the first few feet or so, I simply wind the cord onto the handle or lower portion of the lucet itself. This happens naturally to some degree from the process of turning the lucet fork, but I also stop every few minutes and spend a few seconds working the built up bulk smoothly down the wrap. Just make sure than the spiral is happening in the direction it naturally does when working. Once I’ve pretty much maxed out that space, I stop, unwrap it from the lucet, re-anchor it just below my working area, and wrap the wrest now left hanging around a bobbin. The anchor knot I do which seems to work best is that, holding the cord in place an inch or so below where I’m working or where the tines meet the stem, I wrap the produced cord toward my dominant side and around the back, then cross up over that and around the back, then cross down over just that last wrap, holding that in place with my non dominant thumb. Then I make a loop with the trailing cord and twist it over itself four times, or two full rotations of the loop. I then simply pop that over the stem of the lucet and pull to tighten it down, not removing my stabilizing thumb until it’s quite snug. The rest, as I said, can then be wrapped onto a bobbin, and then anchored with a double half-hitch a few inches down from the bottom of the lucet to keep it from unraveling, dragging, or bumping into you too much. (Yes, I have sensory issues lol.)
TRANSFERRING TO A NEW LUCET If you want to transfer working from one lucet fork to another, it’s as easy and sliding the new fork up along the other, under both working loops, then sliding the old one back out. Loosening the loops first, transferring then tightening them back down can make it even easier.
HOW TO RECOVER DROPPED WORK Less straightforward, but not by much, is what to do if your project falls off the tines entirely. First of all, don’t panic. And absolutely don’t think that you need to rip out your progress so far and start again. Just pick it up and gently, carefully, tug at things until you figure out how to make both loops larger. From there, figure out which loop is tightened by pulling the working thread and start with the other one. Take that other loop which, when pulled, only tightens the other loop, and place it over the dominant side tine. Do a little more gentle tugging, and make sure that the side of that loop which can slide through the cord, effecting the other look, is on the back of that tine. Then, take the second loop., and see which side of it moves through the cord when the working thread is pulled. Place the loop over the non dominant tine, placing the moving side you just identified on the front. From here, you should be able to get right back into it, or, if you’re doing my suggested faster method, you can do just the first step of a stitch, pulling to the side without rotating the lucet, to get back to the base position for that.
HOW TO RECOVER TIGHTENED OR PARTIALLY UNRAVELLED WORK If your project falls off the tines and gets tightened down or slightly unraveled, it’s just as salvageable. Just grab a yarn need, bodkin, or other implement that is precise but not too sharp, and start poking at the end. The first step is making sure that the working yarn is extending from the center of the cord, with two very small bumps/loops on either side. Next, try to see which of those loops was the most recently made by the working thread, or you can watch very carefully to figure this out as you unravel one more stitch. Take that most recent stitch, and make it much larger using your tool, very careful to no pull against the other side or unravel the cord further at all. A very firm pinch can accomplish this, or you could use a fibula or stitch marker through the lesser/secondary loop to keep it from pulling through while you get the first/primary loop expanded. Once that is big enough to fit your hand through, go ahead and expand the second loop as well using the tool, until both are generously big enough to fit back onto your lucet. From there, just repeat the process for a dropped project.
BROKEN THREAD I won’t lie, having the working thread break while making cord is extremely frustrating, but you can recover from it, provided you have some extra thread length for your goal cord length. First, if needed, unravel enough cord that you have a good 2-3 spanns (the full spread of your hand) of thread freed between it’s working anchor on the tines and the broken end. Go back to the last walkthrough on recovering that as needed. Then, with everything situated, take the other broken end, the one that still leads to the ball of thread you are working from, and place it down through your working side loop, giving it a finger’s length or less of tail. Do one stitch, rotating the lucet fork normally. Move this inserted thread to the back and repeat for a thumb’s width or more, essentially trapping the spliced-in thread inside the center of the produced cord. Then, when you only have a finger’s length of the old thread left or you’ve just gone far enough, tighten down that stitch so both are extending from the center of the cord. Pick up the fresh, long thread, and do the next stitch using it as the working thread. Turn, keeping the remains of the old thread to the back (center of the cord) as you had before you switched. Tensioning will be tricky for about three stitches, but just take your time, poke around and try tugging wherever looks likely to tighten things down correctly until things get back to normal. I promise it doesn’t take long. Once you’ve done about a thumb’s width with the new working thread, trim off both broken tails, and you’re back on track. The join won’t be too visible, but it will be a bit thicker and stiffer, so bear that in mind if your intended use for the cord has considerations about that.
ENDING: It’s time to tie off when you have about a spann of thread left, and/or the tensioning loops around your pinky are no longer functional because the end of the thread as caught up with them. To tie off, first tighten down the last stitch while still on the lucet, so that the tail on thread extends from the center of the cord. Then, carefully check which loop does not connect to that tail directly. Take that lesser loop, and stick the loop that does connect to the thread tail through it, pulling that greater loop (and carefully making sure the tail doesn’t disappear) until the lesser loop is fully tightened down to the cord. Lastly, lass the thread tail through the remaining (greater) loop, and tighten it down as well. Now neither end will fray!
FINISHING CUT LENGTHS: You can still have two nicely finished ends that don’t unravel when you cut a length off of a lucet cord. First, whichever side you want to be a specific length, make sure to cut it 1-2 thumb’s widths longer that needed. Cut it, then unravel 1-2 spanns of loose thread. Then just go through the process for recovering tightened work, then the process for finishing, both described above.
SPEED, SHRINKAGE, & MATERIALS Now, let’s get to the speed, shrinkage, and material comparison tests I alluded to earlier. Recently, I found myself want to feel like this craft was a little more predicable for me, instead of something I felt I had to make, crossing my fingers the material would work and that I had enough thread and time. To do this, I started with set lengths of thread to test shrinkage. In an effort to shift my crafting more and more in line with historical production practices, I used my body measurements as the metric. Each piece that I length tested started as nine arm spans (favner, which for me is about 65”) long. So, each started at roughly 585”. Almost all turned out to by a 9:1 ratio for head length to finished cordage. Stretchiness proved to be the only factor in this equation, within my limited sample test, not the gauge of thread, which surprised me. Speed was most heavily dictated by the gauge of the thread I was working with and how much a had to slow down because of tension issues, to get past bumps or irregularities in thickness, or how scared I was that the thread would break again if it already had once.
Here is that list:
Thick Natural Linen: Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 50” in an hour, remaining 15” in 22 minutes. 65” total, 82 minutes total, so 5.4’ in 1.3 hours. 1” made per minute and a quarter. Workability: Noticeably stiff: it slowed me down a little, I had to work from a coil, rather than a ball, and consistent tension was a bit tricky since the last knot kept wanting to loosen.
Brown Single-Ply Wool: Shrinkage: Roughly 8:1, and the finished cord still has some bounce and stretch. Speed: 53” in one hour, a further 18 in an additional 20 minutes. 71” and 80 minutes total. Workability: Regular breakage was an issue, as was irregular size of the thread, yielding irregular cordage. It also stretched, both the thread and cord, which was odd to contend with.
White Silk (Single-Ply Bulky): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: Done in 55 minutes, yielded 65”. Workability: Exceptionally fast and even, yielded an oddly oval cord. The process did unspin the thread a little, but not enough to actually create breakage, thinning, or fraying/fluff issues.
White Silk (Two-Ply Slender): Shrinkage: 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 44” in an hour, the other 21” in 35 minutes. Workability. This is my go-to. Easy, fast, even, and strong. I did have to stop every yard or so to re-spin the dangling ball of thread when the two plies got practically separated across the tines of the lucet fork.
Slenderest Natural Sewing Thread: Shrinkage: Just a little under 9:1 thread to produced cord. (In the direction of 8:1.) Speed: 16.5” in an hour. 70” total. Workability: I had some issues with the fiber bunching into knots, one of which caused a break. Waxing it reduced the bunching, but made it too sticky. Baby powder helped considerably with the beeswax stickiness.
Medium Linen Thread: Shrinkage: Just barely under 9:1 thread to produced cord. Speed: 39.5” inches in the first hour, the other 29” in another 50 minutes. Workability: This was the easiest linen to work with; one pass over wax, and then dusted with baby powder. This is the linen thread weight I had on hand for sewing leather.
Red Machine-Spun Single-Ply Wool: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: Very similar to use to the larger single-ply silk, only grippier, so I had to wrestle with it rather more. And, like the brown wool, the finished cord stretches.
Bright Red Wool Sewing Thread: I didn’t measure shrinkage for this one, as things seemed solidly locked into 9:1 or just under. I forgot to time myself making it. Workability: It did un-spin over the tines right away, but was otherwise nice to work with. Not too stretchy, uneven, or lumpy, but it dead break on me once.
Maroon Silk Thread: Speed: 10” in one hour. I failed to track this further as it was extremely tedious and I was using up the end of a bobbin I didn’t feel like unspooling, measuring, inevitably untangling, and respelling in order to use. Workability: Like I said, very tedious, but no other complaints. The resulting cord was remarkably stiff.
DOUBLE-CORDING I chose this last piece, the maroon silk sewing thread, to test taking finished cord and treating it as the thread, essentially sending it through the process repeatedly. This double-cording got much harder to do on subsequent rounds, since the surface is less smooth. It is, however, great at exponentially compacting the length of thread, especially in a second or third round. I would not, however, recommend using this as a means to store or transport thread you intend to unravel and use later; a simple bobbin, such as a short stick, is much more practical in every conceivable way.
OTHER FANCINESS Lucet cordage can get much more intricate and varied than what I’ve presented here. Speaking just for what can be done with the craft: multiple colors, helix, flat, inserted beads, and more are all options, and can be very beautiful and decorative. However, these options exceed me interests, intended uses and needs, and historical purview as far as I’ve been able to document, so I have yet to try any of it.
USES FOR LUCET CORDAGE What I have personally used lucet cord for: -Lacing up the front of fitted kirtles -Lacing up the sides of 12th century Bliaut dresses -Tying on pattens -Shoulder strap for a Hedeby bag -Closing dozens of small drawstring pouches, like my sewing kit -Tying Jorvic and Dublin caps closed under my chin -Trying single-point coats like the female Viking style closed -As the necklace cord for many pendants, event tokens, and talismans -Modern shoelaces -Many applications where I need string, cord, or ties/belts where something nicer and less scratchy than twine would be nice.
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION Because lucet cord is, as far as I’m aware always, made with organic material, it doesn’t survive well over the centuries, and what little extant cordage does survive comes from specifically preservative conditions. Furthermore, when we do find surviving cord, it can be hard to tell if it was made using a lucet or other similar methods. What we do have more concrete evidence for are whip cording and finger-loop braiding, which yield functionally similar non-flat results, but through wholly different creation methods. When objects are found which could be used to create lucet cord, such as those found at Tyrol (Austria), Lund, and Norfolk, they are often classified as Unidentified Find Objects, or UFOs. While their use can be extrapolated, it can be impossible to prove when no textiles survive attached. Some of the most promising of these finds come from Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The six objects grouped together from these finds date roughly between late 10th and late 11th centuries, and bear striking similarities in design. All are carved from bone, with the material carved away at the narrower end of the material to create two tapered prongs, either set on opposite sides of the base or set together at one longer side of the bone’s oval shape. A majority of these objects are hollow tubes, allowing he cord to pass through the gap when worked. These objects are generally 43mm tall x 22mm wide, with variation large and smaller, but not by terribly much. The Tyrol finds, also considered Knitting Nancies by early archeologists, are dated between late antiquity and the 14th century, and sadly specificity is impossible due to circumstanced of the excavation location. In contrast with the other finds, those at Tyrol have two pins are metal and set atop a piece of bone or horn with only small hole drilled in the bases. Surviving objects that might be lucets are often decorated with carved patterns, most commonly circles, dots, and sets of parallel or zig-zagged lines. Essentially, I was not able to find concrete proof that lucet cord was produces or used in Viking-age Scandinavia, but find it fun to make and perfect for many uses, and so will likely continue having it as a central part of my crafting endeavors.
Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
NEXT TIME Down the road, I want to try comparing Z twist and S twist yarns, both single and plied, to see how that compares when using my preferred method of production. I also want to try to find (or make, though I currently hate spinning) some two-ply, sock-weight, worsted spun wool to try, since I’d hope that a plied wool hand-spun yarn strong enough to warp a loom would hold up better to being make into lucet cord that the single ply I tried here while still being more historically accurate than machine-spun wools that I already know hold up through the process quite well. For now, I will mostly likely continue producing large amounts of blue silk lucet cord just for the enjoyment of the process, and eventual largess.
Happy crafting!
Sources: Phelps, Sara Rossi Daniel C. The Lucet Compendium: A Historical Exploration and Practical Guide, The Complete Anachronistic Issue No. 202, Fourth Quarter 2025. https://www.lrcrafts.it/lucet-cordmaking-history/ Nutz, Beatrix. Cords, Braids, and Bands in Archeology – Finds from Tyrol. The Braid Society Strand Issue No. 29, 2022.
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