Cape Breton's Magazine

AMD CUlUCWeli Put 3 single holes toward equal distance apart. Leave the round of the Toe solid. the front of the Toe Beam, and 3 holes toward the back of the Heel Beam. The Heel itself takes 20 holes, 5 pair on each side. Prepare your rawhide for Stays and filling. You want 1/8" cowhide laces for Toe and Heel Stays, 3/8" for the 30" of Mainstay and 1/4" for filling the Center. You can fill the Toe and Heel with a lighter rawhide (sheep or deer or calfskin) and when this is wet you can cut it to 1/8" with scissors. Some people use lobster twine to fill the Toe and Heel, and Malcolm says that works just fine.But to fill the Centers you will need 24 fathoms of 1/4" rawhide • 12 fathoms a Center. It is easiest to work with in about 8?? laces. Malcolm soaks a sheet of rawhide in water overnight, then using a pocketknife and drawing it steadily toward himself, he cuts his way around and around the hide. He has heard of men setting up a straight razor in the crack in the leaves of a table, making some sort of 1/4" guide and drawing the hide thru • but you can do it just as well the way Malcolm does. Put in the Heel Stay and Toe Stay as in the drawing • except they are to be drawn up fairly snug (not tight) along the inside of the Bow, and Icnotted on the inside at each pair of holes and at each Beam Hole • a good, tight knot. Before you begin to fill the Heel, look at the drawing below. It shows your first few moves. The num? bers indicate the order of the moves. On a separate piece of paper draw the scheme, and draw a single line from number to number • so that you will understand how it will unfold when you are filling. This will keep you from weaving at those times when you should go over or under a number of strands. Do this before you fill each part. Then fill according to the numbers and let the pattern unfold. A properly wo? ven stitch will look like the drawing above, and as the pattern unfolds you will 0AA A' r''i-n-t-'A '4-'?? ?U??t''' ??-nt,? ,.,' ,i • ' ...lit t-_ J. see 6-pointed star shapes. The weaving will be neat er and simpler if you whittle a needle • a two-pointed needle with the eye in the center. Weave with one ' hand over and on under, feeding the needle up and ' down along its path, then pulling the lace through.' Keep the rawhide in water till you are ready to lise it, then give it a good hard stretch as it comes from the water • this will help insure it will not stretch as much as it otherwise might, on the snow. Fill the Heel. If you use lobster twine simply tie onto the Stay at 1. If you use light rawhide, loop it over the stay and through a button-hole-like cut in the lacing, drawn above. Go down to 2, over Stay, under Stay, three times around itself • then up to 3. Make the loop over Stay as shown (each corner is dif? ferent), run 3-4 under 1-2 and over Stay. Loop over Stay at 4, cone under and over itself and over 1-2 and over Stay at 5, under Stay, over itself and over 3-4, under 2-3, loop over Stay at 6. From 6 Tr"comes over itself and over 2-3, weaves under 1-2 and loops at 7, goes over itself aiid over 1-2, weaves under 5-6, under 3-4, over Stay at 8, under and over itself and over 3-4, under 2-3, loop at 9. And that's the pat? tern: Corner to corner, across, corner to corner, a- cross. You know that 9 will loop the Stay in a way to cross over itself in the right direction to go over 2-3, weave under 7-8, 5-6 and 1-2. Follow the numbers to 44, weave across and tie on at 1. 2-' 38* 35-'3 A'* Cape Breton*s Magazine/l3