Hansel and Gretel, Part 6: Making the Hair
Chapter 6 in our ongoing Dollmaking Series, where I am showing you how to create a set of natural dolls, from scratch, inspired by the waldorf tradition and the folk story of Hansel and Gretel.
The way I make doll hair with straight mohair yarn is quite intense and time-consuming, but there is a much easier way for you to try your hands at this if this is your first array into this type of hairstyle.
In this video tutorial I show you this easier way, which is to crochet with great-quality doll making mohair yarn and use a mini wool carder or pet brush to tease the fiber out of the wig cap, creating a nice halo of hair.
The snag of using this method, or shorter version you could say, is that you don’t draw as much mohair out of the wig as with the other technique. But for the purposes of making doll hair for these little ones, it’s alright.
Hansel doesn’t need such a vast amount of hair because he is little, and Gretel will get long “locks” with added strands. So we solve that problem to an extent.
A little step I left out of the previous chapter was sculpting little belly buttons for Hansel and Gretel. I decided to take that out of the video because it was getting quite long already, so I included it in this video chapter.
There are about 5 or 6 different ways that I know of to sculpt belly buttons, but in my opinion this is kind of the cute and easy one for you as you are starting, because it’s more or less the same technique you used to make the doll’s noses.
Now that we have the dolls finally finished, sewn, stuffed, assembled and with hair, we will be endeavouring to dress them.
The next two chapters we will be concentrating efforts in making their clothing, nice and playful outfits, easy to handle for little hands.
This will require gentle and steady doll making hands and maybe some cups of tea thrown in the mix if you are not on the best friendly terms with your sewing machine.
Do not despair, I will be holding your hand so you see everything made and can keep track.
Thank you for following this adventure with me and for taking time out of your life to create with natural materials.
I hope this series has brought light to your day and that you have learned a little or a lot from my videos.
I will see you later this week with the Chapter on Hansel’s clothing.
