How To Make Fabric Laces For Skates

One of my mantras is that everything is better with fabric so anytime there is an opportunity to incorporate fabric, it is going to happen. Also, being a girl with many and varied hobbies, I love to roller skate. It's fun, great exercise, and a great way to spend time with my youngest son. Recently, I decided it was time to buy my own skates rather than rent them.

Is that skate with it's plain black lace not the most boring thing you've ever seen? My son and I have the exact same kind of skates, too, so there needed to be a way to tell them apart. Maureen Cracknell has a tutorial up on her blog that shows how to make fabric laces for your sneakers. It was the perfect starting point for my project.

First, remove the laces from the skates and measure them. These are 67" long. Then, choose a fabric and cut some 2" strips to total the length of two laces. This fabric is a stripe from Lakehouse. The strips are sewn end to end in the same manner as quilt binding (Maureen's tutorial shows this).

Because these laces are going on skates and need to be extra strong, fusible interfacing was added to the wrong side to make them super durable.

Press the long strip in half lengthwise.

Open it up and press each long side to the center crease.

Then fold it back in half and press one more time. Stitch down each long side to finish it off.

Looking good and so much more personality that boring black.

This step is different from the sneaker tutorial. Instead of lacing up the skates and then turning down the edges to finish the laces, I cut the ends at a sharp angle to make it easy to slip them through the lace holes. If the ends are turned under to finish, the lace becomes too thick and cannot be removed without cutting the end off. This method allows for the laces to be taken out and put back in easier.

To finish, the ends were zigzag stitched to keep them from fraying.

Here is an after and a before. Which one do you like best? I'm all for a good dose of color.

Now I need to think about some matching socks!

All finished. Happy skates. Happy skater.