How to Fix a Lace in Less Than Two Minutes
The discreet drawstring makes a lot possible, such as tightening the hood of your sweatshirt or keeping your swim trunks from falling off when you step out of the pool. But if that rope is pulled out, getting it back can be a big headache. Unless, of course, you have a charging cable handy.
An iPhone cable – or any cable with a small plug and relatively stiff cord – should be able to slide the cord back perfectly. Of course, you can also use the more traditional method, in which you thread a large safety pin through the end of the string and use it to guide the rope back through the channel. But these days, most of us are more likely to have a charging cable handy than a safety pin.
Here’s how to do it:
- Insert the smaller end of the cable into one of the lace holes.
- Continue pushing the cable until it comes out of the other end.
- Tie the cord to the cable.
- Pull the cable carefully back through the channel.
Pulling the cable through the channel takes seconds; the only finicky thing is to loosen the tied rope in the channel when you start step # 4. Tied channels usually have enough room for a cord and a knotted lace, but sometimes the channel opening can be a little tight. If necessary, you can enlarge it slightly by cutting or stretching the hole that extra fraction of an inch.
After seeing this tip in the video , I tried it with the hoodie I was wearing. I will note two things about this video: first, the video is accelerating, so it takes longer than the 45 seconds indicated in the title. And second, the person doing this is trying to do step 4 with brute force by pulling hard on the cable, instead of taking a second to reinsert the cable into the hole. You can do better.
My test went well, and even with this misunderstanding, I put the lace back in place in less than two minutes. I have safety pins, but the process took less time than I would have spent digging through sewing supplies to find them.