A lock join is sometimes needed in tatting, including needle tatting. A lock join does what it sounds like it does – it basically is a join to a picot that “locks in” all of the tatting you have just done, prior to the lock join. This helps greatly in keeping your prior work from becoming loosened and somewhat sloppy looking.
So, here is a video that will show you how to do a lock join with needle tatting. Below the video, I have attempted to provide written instructions for a needle tatting lock join.
How To Do A Needle Tatted Lock Join
To do a needle tatting lock join, do the following:
- Take your needle thread (the thread that goes through the eye of your needle) and wrap it around the tops of your fingers, then loop around your small finger once or twice to get a firm hold on the needle thread.
- Make sure the needle thread is below the picot in which you are doing the lock join.
- Take your crochet hook and bring the hook downward (not upward) through the picot in which you are making the lock join.
- Hook the needle thread below the picot and draw the thread upward through the picot.
- When you have the needle thread drawn up through the picot (there will now be a large loop of needle thread above the picot), make sure this large loop of needle thread doesn’t twist. If that large loop is twisted, the lock join won’t work correctly – in other words, it won’t lock in like it needs to.
- Bring your needle upward (going from front to back of the large loop you have just drawn up.
- Start closing the large loop by gently pulling on the needle. Don’t pull it tight yet, though.
- When the large loop has become somewhat small after pulling most of it closed with your needle, you will want to make sure all of your prior tatting is in place, nice and snug, and lying flat. You will also want to make sure that the join itself is in the correct place so that you won’t have any bare thread gaps.
- After everything looks like it is in place, hold all of the surrounding work firmly between your thumb and index finger, and gently pull the rest of the loop closed.
- Once you have gone through steps 1 through 9 above and your loop is pulled tight, you have successfully done a lock join! Congratulations!
The lock join basically creates a knot at the point where it is done. This locks in all of the tatting done prior to the lock join or, as Georgia states in the above video, it literally creates a knot, which “locks in” your prior tatting.
Never Fear…It’s undoable!
If you find you have somehow messed up and would like to undo the lock join you just attempted, say HURRAY!
You most definitely can undo the lock join you just attempted. Undoing a lock join can be just as frustrating as doing it in the first place lol, but it can be done with some patience and gentleness!
To undo and redo a messed up lock join, do the following:
- Take your crochet hook and gently insert the hook into the middle of the knot, being careful so as not to separate the individual strands that make up your thread.
- Once you have your crochet hook inserted through the knot area, simply jiggle and wiggle the crochet hook to loosen the knot you just created.
- When the knot has been loosened, gently hook the crochet hook and pull the needle thread up into a loop.