Latch hook makes soft, shaggy rugs and cushions the low-tech way: short pieces of rug yarn knotted onto every square of a stiff canvas mesh. No frame, no power, no noise — the whole tool is a hook with a little hinged flap called the latch. The latch closes as you pull back and traps the yarn for you, which is the whole trick and the whole name.
The grid crafts in this family share a chart, but only latch hook keeps it honest to scale. Tufting's chart squares are patches of rug half an inch across; filet's squares are four stitches each. Latch hook's chart square is one square of canvas and one knot, so the chart prints at working size: draw 36 squares across on 3.75-mesh canvas and the rug is 36 inches ÷ 3.75 — about 9½ in — across. There is no gauge to chase and nothing to mirror.
It is also the puzzle-slow, portable one of the three rug crafts — the one you can work on the sofa, one knot at a time. If you haven't chosen between this, punch needle and a tufting gun, the honest comparison with costs is in Rugs, but on a grid on the News page.
Canvas is sold by mesh — how many holes to the inch. Three sizes cover the craft:
| Mesh | What it's for |
|---|---|
| 3.3 mesh | Chunky work with thick yarn |
| 3.75 mesh | The standard — the usual canvas for pre-cut yarn packs |
| 5 mesh | Finer detail, with thinner yarn |
Each canvas thread is either a straight horizontal one or a twisted upright one, and the knot only counts on the straight horizontals — twisted uprights push the piece off and the knot never seats. One chart square is one knot on one mesh hole. Rows are worked from the bottom of the chart up, so finished rows fall out of the way under your hands; the app's Make tab numbers them the same way — its work row 1 is the chart's bottom row.
A chart square can be left bare on purpose: a run of skip squares in the app's instructions just means no knot there, and bare canvas shows through. The app's 15 starter latch-hook drafts fill every square — the skip habit is easier on a mat you design than on a rug you buy as a kit. Small details worth leaving bare are rare anyway; a knot hides its square completely from the front.
Fold a piece of yarn over the hook below the latch, push the hook under one horizontal canvas thread, lay both ends into the hook, and pull it back: the latch closes over them and pulls the ends through the loop. Tug both ends to tighten. That is the entire technique — the app's own knot sentence, learned in about ten knots.
| Item | What to get | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The latch hook | Any latch hook — the hinged flap does the trapping | One tool for the whole craft, whatever the mesh |
| Rug canvas | 3.75-mesh for pre-cut yarn; 5-mesh for thin yarn and fine detail; 3.3 for chunky | Cut it with 5 spare squares on every side of the design — see the margin below |
| Pre-cut rug yarn | Pieces about 2½ in long, one per knot | Packs hold different counts, so check the number on the pack (or count one) before buying — and buy a pack or two over: a few pieces always go astray |
| A marker and scissors | To outline the design on the canvas, and for trimming | The app's first Make step marks the outline before any knot is tied |
| Finishing needle and yarn | A large tapestry needle and yarn in the main color | For overstitching the folded edge — the last real job of the rug |
| A rug comb (optional) | For fluffing the pile at the end | Combing the finished pile is the full-finished-rug look |
Latch hook skips the yarn-weight math the other rug crafts need, because the yarn arrives pre-cut. One piece per knot means the shopping list is a head-count: the app's Supplies tab sorts the colors by knots used, biggest first, and prints each color as a number of pieces — for the drafts gallery's Checkerboard, 36 × 24 knots with every square filled, that's 864 pieces total (about 55 m of yarn cut to length, if you cut your own).
What you can't know in advance is how many pieces a pack holds — packs ship different counts, so the app counts pieces and leaves packs to you. Check the number on the pack or count one, and add a pack over for the pieces that vanish into the sofa. The rug's size itself is plain division: squares on each side, divided by the mesh — the app prints it, and says "about".
Start at a bottom corner and work up row by row, so the finished rows fall out of your way — the one habit every latch-hook guide agrees on. Along a row, work left to right (the app's convention; Hobbycraft is happy with either bottom corner, so this one is habit, not law).
Before the first row, the app sorts the yarn into one pot per color, within reach, and prints each row as a count — a row reads like Row 3: 8 Cream, skip 3, 12 Forest — runs of one color along the row, with skip squares left bare. Follow the counts and the rug draws itself; the design grid and the working order are the same grid. When the colors change mid-row you just dip into the next pot, which is why latch hook is friendlier to busy pictures than the one-color-at-a-time rug crafts.
When the last knot is in, the rug is one afternoon of finishing from done — no glue drying a day the way a tufted rug schedules. First, trim any long pile ends level and walk the front for gaps (a missing knot is a one-minute fix wherever it is). Then the edge: cut away the canvas at the corners to reduce bulk, fold the 5-square margin to the back, and overstitch the fold down along every side with yarn in the main color. That's the engine's whole finish, and it's the whole finish — the rug comes off the table a rug.
A rug that will see hard floor traffic can take a glued backing as well — the optional extra the family comparison names for latch hook — and the latex schedule for that job is written out in the tufting guide's finish section; latch hook borrows it unchanged. Finally, comb the pile for a fuller look, and it's done.
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Pile lies every which way | Knots made different ways round | Keep all knots facing the same direction; redo the handful that lean wrong |
| Knots slip out or sit loose | Hooked over a twisted upright thread | Knot only over the straight horizontal threads; re-seat the slipped knot |
| The ends won't stay in the hook | The latch rode open on the pull | Hold both ends into the hook and pull again — the latch must close over them |
| Pile shorter than expected | Pieces cut short for the mesh | Pile is about half the piece less the knot — measure a knot of your own yarn before cutting a batch |
| Long pieces crowd on fine canvas | Full-length pieces on 5 mesh | Thinner yarn or shorter pieces suit a fine mesh better (the app flags the combination) |
| Rug smaller than the chart promised | Mesh misread — the squares assumed were 3.75 but the canvas is 5 (or 3.3) | Measure the mesh before you cut; squares ÷ mesh = inches |
| Edges fray or curl after finishing | Corners not cut away, or the margin left unfolded | Cut the corners, fold the margin to the back, overstitch every side |
| Pieces ran out before the rug did | The pack's count wasn't checked | Count a pack before buying and keep a pack over — the app counts pieces, not packs |
The same comparison — latch hook vs punch needle vs tufting, by cost and speed — is the News page's rug post, and Learn keeps the three-way table next to the science of the other crafts.
The drafts gallery previews all 15 latch-hook drafts — filter to the latch-hook chips — from a Beginner Checkerboard (two colors, about 10 × 6 in, a first rug) and Chevron rug to an Intermediate Owl cushion and an Advanced Peacock feather. Two or three colors of big shapes are the friendly end of the shelf.