I got some new shoes today because my old ones had cracks in the soles (which got my feet wet!). So once I'd admired them and polished them, it was time to lace them.
Antonia rolls her eyes whenever I bring it up, but I am genuinely fascinated by lacing shoes! Before I was enlightened I used to lace my shoes in the standard criss-cross fashion and wondered why all my shoe tongues wore out so fast...
You cannot beat Ian's Shoelace Site for information about tying and lacing shoes. Not only does it explain why your shoelace knots always come out wonky, but it also gives dozens of ways of lacing shoes, their relative merits, instructions of how to do them, and sample photos.
It turns out how you lace your shoes has a big impact on how quickly your shoes and laces wear, and there are lots of different methods that affect how easy it is to tighten or loosen your shoes. You should definitely check it out (seriously!).
Shoes always come with long thick laces; I need to buy some shorter ones. For now, with only 3 sets of eyes to work with (so no bar lacing), I chose over under lacing, as shown above.