One of the members of my weaving guild told me about the latchet lucet at the first meeting I attended. My husband bought both of us a lucet last year for Christmas and we had been playing around it with but it is slow going. She said it was really quick to make the cord she turns into little catchalls.

I was thinking about picking up the lucet again after reading The Year of Knots. In that, she uses various ropes and cords to make necklaces and other small projects by tying knots. I have so much yarn leftover from the temperature blanket and some yarn I had bought for the blanket and decided against using and it seemed to make sense to make the rope or cord myself using what I had rather than buying (and then probably dyeing) cord specifically for the project.

However, unless I suddenly became massively better than I currently am at the lucet, I would never be making anything else out of the cord for a long, long time.

I remembered the latchet lucet and ordered one. They are made by Dewberry Ridge and were designed with Noreen Crone-Findlay who seemly has cornered the market in pin loom and other small weaving-adjacent fiber arts. It took a few weeks to arrive and then a few more weeks for me to get up the nerve to pick it up and use it.

Why did I wait? After just a couple minutes I was making inches and inches of cord! It’s so easy and quick. Basically, it looks like a latch-hook or two hooks from a knitting machine that you wrap yarn around and then you slide the yarn, engaging the hooks and it makes cord.

I have had a little issue finishing off the cord, Noreen Crone-Findlay buries this info deep in her long, awkward and mistake-riddled introduction video and I keep having to rewatch it. You do the motions of making the cord many times but you only finish it off once. I think I haven’t done it enough for it to become second nature.

It isn’t what I would say is a fun or creative activity, it is really more production than crafting but you really can’t beat how quick it is and how consistent the results are. At first, I had some issues accidentally pulling it off the hooks and having to reattach it but after a couple hours, I was attuned enough that it didn’t happen again. It does take a bit more “eyes on” time than you’d think for such a repetitive, mindless task, maybe that will improve with time but I do find myself having to look at it basically the whole time. Since it’s clamped to the table, it is a little difficult to watch a movie and do it at the same time. A podcast would be a better choice.

I’ve really been enjoying seeing how multi-colored yarn works up. This yarn is making almost little chevrons. It reminds me of how yarn I use on the bookmark loom forms different patterns than they do on the Zoom loom. Of course, that makes sense but it’s interesting how different uses yield such different patterns. When I’ve woven this yarn it just looks speckled with a few clumps of color.

Who would know that it would know it would make such a distinct pattern when made into cord?

I digress but I’m enjoying the results. I’m hoping to make something fun out of the cord soon.