How To Locker Hook

Now, you have all the materials ready, let’s hook and lock the loops!!!! I illustrate the How To Locker Hook with one of the coasters I made for the giveaway.

I am currently working on a bigger project for my home, should be able to complete just-in-time for the Chinese New Year which falls on the same day as Valentine’s day this year, yes, double celebration on 14 Feb 2010!!!!

As I mentioned in the basic preparation tutorial, my method is a little different since I am using my own locking chopstick. Pro – this is suitable for beginners and for those who can’t find a locker hook, Con – slower in process. If you are able to find a locker hook, Theresa is more than happy to share with you how to lock the loops with a hook. Please find the how-to locket hook video at the end of this post that she demonstrates with trivet making. A big thank you to Theresa, who allows me to embed her video in Craft Passion.

How To Locker Hook

Pattern: Download 2010 pattern.

Materials & Tools:
1. Rug canvas, draw the pattern on it and with the edges sewn up.
2. Crochet hook and the chopstick “locking” tool I invented
3. Tapestry needle
4. Fabric strips
5. Scissors

Get all your materials ready as mentioned the basic preparation.

Sew A Border
First, sew a border at the 4 edges of the project. Thread a fabric strip of about 1.5m through the eye of the tapestry needle, it will cause excessive fraying if your strip is too long. Start whip stitching on the second square from the edge, you can whip stitch on the 1st square if you prefer thinner border. Leaving a tail of about 4cm long, catch the tail and whip stitch it along the edge as you go to secure it.

You will need to pass through the square twice when you reach the corner. This is to make sure that you can cover the corner nicely with fabric.

Adjust the fabric so that it covers nicely by overlapping each fabric a little before tightening the stitch.

When you reach the end of the strip, pass the needle through a few loops and pull the end through the loops. Trim off the excess strip. Continue with a new strip and repeat the steps above.

Hook And Lock The Loops
Use a length of about 2 m long yarn or strong thread, tie one end to the locking chopstick and the other end to the 1st square that you are going to hook a loop. Place the fabric strip under the canvas.
If your locking yarn happens to finish before your project, just cut the yarn out from the locking chopstick and tie a knot to the end with a new yarn, leaving about 2-3 cm length for the ends, tie the other end of the new yarn to the locking chopstick and you can continue with the locker hook. Be a little careful when pulling the yarn with the knot through the loops, sometime it will get stuck, just help it pass through the huddle by “massaging” the loops a little.

Use a crochet hook to hook up a loop of fabric from bottom to top via the rug canvas square. Insert the locking chopstick through the loop. The strip tends to fold up into halve the width when hooking up. I like my fabric to open flat so that it wrinkles between the square. Some people like a folded type, in that case, just let it be and don’t open the strip flat. Leaving a tail of about 4cm, don’t do anything on the tail yet, we are going to take care of it after the project is finished.

Pull the strip so that the loop sits on the chopstick tightly. The locking chopstick not only act as a locking tool, but it is also a tension gauging medium. You will have an even height of loops throughout the project.

Continue hooking up the fabric strip onto the chopstick, move the chopstick forward a little as you go. When you reach the end, pull the chopstick completely out with the yarn passing through all the loops. The function of the yarn is to lock all the loops in place so that the loop won’t get out from the canvas square.
Rotate the canvas 180 deg and work on the second row and so on.
Besides locker hooking row by row horizontally, you can also go round and round, just rotate the canvas 90 deg and work on the column.

Locker hooking a single color is simple, just keep on locker hook with the same color fabric strips, one after another. But if you have a pattern which uses different colors, managing the strips becomes challenging. In order to complete a neat and tidy locker hook project, we must keep the strips-crossing at the back to the minimum. You don’t want to have a bumpy bottom, right?
As an example, I used 5 strips for the coaster of the number “0”. When I locker hooked row by row, I just used the correct strip according to the pattern on the canvas to avoid bringing it across at the back each time I need to change color.

Just look at the back of the coaster, I ended up having only 10 ends to manage. You can see that the back is flat without any messy zigzag crossing here and there.
You are near to completion, just left the finishing touch and you are done!
NEXT —> Locker Hook Tutorial: Finishing Touch

A big thank you to Theresa, who allows me to embed her video in Craft Passion. See how Theresa hook-loop-lock a beautiful trivet, you are going to love it!