Locker Hooking

My wife has been interested in this, and got me started on it so I could teach her. A friend of ours gave us a trivet for Christmas a few years ago, made with locker hooking. We have used it almost daily to set hot pans on. They are so nice, my wife wanted to make some. Locker hooking is done on rug canvas with a needle that has a hook at one end and an eye at the other, as shown in the photo. A locking medium is threaded through the eye of the hook. Here, I'm just using heavy cotton string. The locking medium doesn't show. Then, fabric is cut in 1 inch wide strips. You whip stitch around the edge with the fabric and a large tapestry needle. Then, you pull up a loop of fabric in one of the holes. You move to the next hole and pull up a loop until you have five or six loops on the hook. Then you pull the locking medium through the loops to lock them in place. It looks rather messy at this stage, but at the end, you pull all the ends to the opposite side, weave them in and trim them off. It makes very durable trivets, coasters, mats, and rugs. This is a good way to use up scraps of fabric. You can also use thick yarn or even wool rovings. I'll keep you posted as to what it looks like when it's finished.