Making Homemade Crochet Hooks from Chopsticks

[sedrasmom]

Your daughter is very, very cute.
And you are very, very crafty.

Awww, shucks! Thanks so much  for the compliments!

Monica

[sedrasmom]

I drew a rough sketch of the cuts to make, but the instructions came out too small to read when I saved it small enough for uploading to craftster's picture hosting.

This is what I'm getting at - from left to right -

1 - Cut the stick to desired length
2 - Cut a little off the full length of the handle and cut the neck swoop. Extend the neck swoop cut a little past where you want the point of the hook to be. (Actually you could probably get by without trimming the whole handle if you wanted. It wouldn't make that much difference.)
3 - Cut an upward notch - forming the hook part - to meet the cut you made in step 2 for the neck swoop.
4 - cut a little off the top to make it pointy. optionally, trim a handle swoop for a comfy grip area.
5 - (This is supposed to represent the front view....) Trim the other corners of the top to make them pointy, like in the last step. Trim a little off the sides by the neck so that part is skinnier than the handle.

After that, file all the points down to shape it the way you want, then sand it down smooth. Follow with the waxing method of your choice.

Happy hooking!

[gearhead_70]

While browsing today I ran across this site that has very good drawings for making hooks. 

http://serendipity.gpvm.com/straight.html

[caribbeanjerk]

What a great idea, these will be fun to make for my friends following in my needlework-hobby footsteps

-caribbeanjerk-

[plainsight]

These are awesome! Did you worry about size of hook when you were making them? Compare them to existing hooks?

[sedrasmom]

Thanks! No, I didn't bother to try to make them any specific size because the kind of stuff I make, I don't use patterns, I just pick what I think might work. So I made these a general usable size. If I needed to, I could crochet a swatch with my homemade hooks and compare against a swatch from a strore-bought hook, but I don't have any immediate need to do that.

Monica

[Nicole Randome]

  I've made tons of knitting needles from dowels, and now I must make some hooks.

I really, really love this place. 

[crappiefisher]

 

this is too cool! i've always wanted to make my own hooks and now i can. THIS FORUM ROCKS!

Thanks so much for sharing.

[PpCakes]

wow, that is quite posibly the greatest idea ever. must go get chinese!!!

[bonjourpouletfou]

This tutorial is pure genious! I just made my first crochet hook. Now I just need to learn how to crochet. 
But instead of wax (which I tired using for knitting needles I made, and it was a big flop), melted or not, I just used some glue and that sealed all the cracks in the chopstick, smoothed it out quite a bit, and made the hook nice and shiny. Thanks sedrasmom!