Many years ago, I took a short class at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival on Australian Locker-Hooking. It was fun and easy, but I never did anything with the craft.

Last year, my little sister told me that she was getting married and, while wondering what to give her for a wedding gift, I remembered the locker-hooking lesson and decided to try hooking a rug with some of the roving from my flock.

Locker hooking was popular in the 1920s-40s and was practiced in Great Britain and America. The technique was called the "Anchored Loop" and used fabric strips. In the 1970’s it was re-invented in Australia and given a new twist...or lack of twist, by using fleece straight from the sheep, or carded roving. All that’s needed is fleece, roving, or yarn, rug canvas, a locker hook and locker thread. The locker hook looks like a crochet hook with a needle eye on the end. The roving is drawn up through the hole in the rug canvas, and after several loops have been pulled up, the locker hook and attached locker thread are drawn through the loops, locking them in place. The technique can be used to make rugs, saddle blankets, wall hangings, jackets and bags.

   

 

Supplies Needed:

• Rug canvas with 3-4 holes per inch
• Locker hook
• Wool-fleece, roving, yarn, or rags
• Locker yarn or twine (to lock loops)

 

1)  Prepare the canvas by turning 2 rows under on each edge, and sew by hand or by machine using a "zig-zag" stitch.

2)  Trace the pattern onto the canvas

3)  Thread the eye of the hook with locker twine or yarn. With the roving held on the underside of the canvas, and the hook held on the top, push the hook down through one hole in the canvas and catch the roving, draw a loop of roving up through the square, keeping the loop on the hook. After a few loops are hooked, the locker hook is pulled through all the loops and the locker twine locks the loops in place.

4)  The edge is finished by spinning a bulky single ply yarn, and using a tapestry needle to whip stitch the canvas edge.

The Finished Rug

 

Some useful resources when learning to locker-hook:

LOCKER HOOKING, an American Perspective by Marilyn Livingston

AUSTRALIAN LOCKER HOOKING- A New Approach to a Traditional Craft by Joan Z. Rough

CREATIVE LOCKER HOOKING  by L. Peguero