Gimme a Head of Hair! Long beautiful Hair!!!!

That was Tessie this morning... She watched "Hair" the movie, not too long ago.  So when I went to do her hair she started singing and she sang all through the makeover.

I started with the main hair.  I twisted it to make a  part in the front.  In the back, I put the bun that I made yesterday and one of the pieces of braiding went around the bun.

Then I tried one of the curls in the back.

I ended up with three.  Kota barely tolerated her posing next to him.  I thought a couple of times that he was just going to bite her head off and be done with it...

He behaved himself, so I didn't have to scold him.

Then I went through my findings and cut one apart to make the top of a comb to stick into the top of the curls. 

I then added a bow and that was it.

She is very happy with the do.

Now all I have to do is get her to stand still long enough to dress her.  I don't think that will be hard.  She wants to start shouting orders in the worst way. 

But.... She won't until she is dressed.  She knows when to hold still and when to holler!

I see a couple of spots of glue in the hair.  I had better go see about removing that before she spots it.

Off to more dressing and work.

See you tomorrow.

Waiting For Tessie's Hair to Dry...

We go through this every time that Tessie needs new hair...

She always starts with the blond... Nope. Not her color...

I won't make you go through all of the trying on.

I have just about every color that there is and she always wants to start with the blond...

She always ends up being a red head, over and over again...

We are now sitting here waiting for her hair to dry... again.

While we were waiting, she found this chase lounge. It's not the same material as the rest of the stuff I am going to use in her dressing room, but it might work.  We shall see.  I am not sure if there is enough room...

Anyway, we are taking it one step at a time and this will be one of the last things to go in, if it fits.

I am hoping that it doesn't.  She will want it recovered.  If that happens, I may as well build a new one.  It would be easier than taking this one apart.

Anyway, I am about to stop work for the day and go watch TV with Walter.  We are watching all of the Supernatural episodes from start to finish.  It's kind of like reading a book.  Just a couple of chapters a day.  See you tomorrow.

Total Disaster...

Tessie's day of beauty went downhill fast.  Almost as soon as it started...

By a couple of hours in, I realized that she was just going around in circles.

New bones? Check.  New muscles? Check. 

Then she peeled off her old hair, all by herself... I knew that couldn't be good...

She then announced, "The bun has to go! I want something short and modern...

I tried to tell her that she wasn't going to like it when she got on her broom.

To that she announced, "Let me be the judge of that!"

So... I put on a new crop of hair and gave her a haircut.  It looked pretty cute, but I made the mistake of telling her to go try it on the broom.

She promptly pulled a pair of pantaloons over her arms and a skirt from an old dress on her lower half...

That didn't take long.  Five minutes later she was complaining to Zar what a mess I had made of her hair... As if the cut was my idea... Nope.  I don't take responsibility for her demanding a "bob".

By that time she had exchanged the bloomers for an old petticoat with her head stuck out the top and her arms at the bottom...

I called Zar out of the room and had a conference with him... He is pretty smart sometimes...

He suggested that he handle the situation.

He went back in and told Tessie that the flying just proved that witches should never wear their hair in a bob.  It gets in their eyes when they are flying. 

Then he told her to come in and apologize to me and humbly ask me to put her hair back in a bun, so that she could see when she was flying...

Darned if it didn't work.  She came back in, teary eyed and actually did what he suggested...

The only problem is... I will have to start all over tomorrow morning and do it all again. I didn't really want a do over...

I do believe that Zar is hoping that I get it done in a hurry.  He announced after she finished... "Oh.  By the way, I need a new pair of pants, a shirt, a new vest and a hair cut! And maybe you could get rid of the gray patches in my hair whilst you are at it.

I can't win.  See you tomorrow for another bout with fabric and hair.

Done With the Bun!

This morning I did a picture hat for Tessie...

One problem.  The bun wouldn't fit inside. More about that later.

Here is the pattern.  I put the measurements on it, but again, if you can resize it in one of your programs It will come out more true to scale.

She insisted that she needed a hat to match the apron that she is wearing... I can see more hats to come...

There are a lot of ways to make hats.  This is just the way that I devised over 30 years ago and I am stuck in a rut.

I glue the fabric to one side of the cut out  cardstock pieces.  I cut many Vs in the edge of convex curves(outside).  Many slits in the concave(inside) side.

Next I glue all of the tabs around to the opposite side.  Let them dry a bit.

Then glue the lining to the inside of the cardstock over the tabs.  Trim the fabric even with the edge of the piece

Here is one partially trimmed.  The bottom side and the middle.

After that, I glue the crown piece together. A to A.  The brim, B to B. 

Then I glue the crown to the brim.

I then cut a top piece to fit exactly over the top edge of the crown. Cover it the same way and glue it in place.

Go wild decorating it... Unless Tessie wants it plain. 

There are two different brims pictured above.  The first one is the one on the hat.  It has a lot of curve.  The one in the above photo, that is half covered and cut, has a smaller piece  cut in the back and will be more flat.

Tessie preferred the first one.  And here she is.  She tried it on and couldn't get the bun in the crown. 

To my astonishment, she grabbed a pair of my small, sharp scissors and started hacking at her bun. 

I stopped her before she was totally bald... She hesitated and then thanked me for it.

This means that the afternoon will be spent giving Tessie a new hairdo. It's about time.  She has had this bun for over a year... Maybe even two. 

Out with the old and in with the new.  She tried to talk me into giving her blond hair.  I talked her out of that.  No one would know her as a blond. Her only request...er.. Demand was that she could wear hats over her hairdo. I don't think that I like the sound of that...

I see a lot of hat making in my future.  At least she has a good start.  When we closed the hat shop and made it into a place for her to sew, she squirreled away all of the hats.

I have to admit that she does look nice in the ones that I just made... I do believe that I am going to make her sign a contract saying that she will wear every hat that she owns at least one day before she starts demanding new ones.  Maybe "Hat Mania" will wear off before she finishes wearing them all.

Back to being a beautician.  See you tomorrow.  

Red, White and Blue...

 OK.  It's the Fourth of July... What better way to celebrate than make a Red, White and Blue project?

Tessie came to me this morning, complaining..."My hair is a mess.  I need to spend a day of beautifying...

In other words, she needed new hair.

She agreed to let me take one photo after I stripped her head, only if she could hide her face and be anonymous.

I said I would, then I snapped this part before she could completely cover her face.  Sorry Tessie...

 She quickly slapped the hair on her lap onto her head and let out a shriek and a stream of curses... I dodged them all or I would be running around in a cockroach's body right now.  Thank goodness, I'm fast.

The hair that you see on her lap is all I need to make a braid for the back of her hair... Yup.  Same hairdo.  Same color...She's in a rut.  Has been for about 400 years.

Incidentally, if you want to braid hair for a little person, the easiest way is to do it on a clipboard, before you put it on her head.

The braid was made from about 5" of the mohair, when stretched out. It is about 4" when braided.  No standard measures.  I make it longer than I need and then just cut off the excess.

I simply did a snail coil of the braid and used white glue to fasten it to the back of her head and then put a new lace "crown" around it.

She is now a perfect picture of Red, White and Blue.

Happy Forth of July to those who celebrate it.  I hope that everybody has a great day!

See you tomorrow.

Peek A Boo...

The title refers to Widget.  He is always somewhere nearby, supervising. I couldn't resist this photo of him.

I'll bet you thought that I forgot the other two boxes...Nope.  At least not one of them.

The dressing room is much closer to being finished than the other one. That one may languish for a while.  The actor's room is calling.

I decided to make a wig for him/her.

In the first photo, the stand is on the table and the wig cap on the stand.  It is the tip end of the thumb of a kid glove.  It just fit the ball of the stand.  You could use the same technique to make a wig to fit a doll, but the glove would have to be really thin.

I won't go into all of the boring details, other than to say that I cut along the hairline and glued it to the ball.  Then I just took three pieces of mohair, unfurled them and glued the top ends to the ball.  You can see that in the final photo.  Not at all complicated.

Then I proceeded to make seven roses.  I have showed you how to use one of these elsewhere in the blog. 

You just start with your needle tool and loop about 1/4" of the end of the ribbon around it and glue.

Next you twist the ribbon towards yourself once and glue.

 Last you twist it away from yourself and glue to the body of the rose between each twist.

I usually do three of these.  You can do more if you want a BIG rose.  The one in the photo is ready to cut.

Here's the finished wig on the stand.  If you blow it up, you can see a wreath of roses on the top of the head....Very Juliet-ish.

None of the stuff is glued in yet.  I still have the power to change my mind if need be.

Now for the hard part.  He is going to need a costume...

See you tomorrow.

Complete Makeover....Zar Style....

Zar went to pieces this morning....Literally!  Actually I tore him apart, limb from limb...

Luckily, he has potions for the procedure from Tessie's collection.  It doesn't bother him a bit.

In fact, I can't shut him up.  He is worse than Tessie, when it comes to making suggestions about his appearance.

His one condition was that I didn't tell anyone that he was the one getting the makeover.....As if you couldn't tell it was him.

So...This is NOT Zar, hiding behind an old shirt sleeve, showing off his new body.

I do it in six parts.  I use thin polyester batting.  He gets a wrap around each upper arm.  Then a wrap around his chest area.  Next comes the hip area.  I start by folding the batting a few times(for his butt).  Then I wrap the hip portion all around, with the extra folds in the back.

The last is the legs.  I use strips that are the width of the area that I want to cover.  You will notice, I don't do any gluing or sewing on the pieces.  If you stretch it as you wrap, and simply pull off what you don't need at the end, the batting will stick to itself.

Zar insisted upon having a hair makeover.  Actually, I was going to do it anyway.  He was getting a few bald spots.

I used some very rustic, yak hair yarn that I have had for years.  If I untwist it, it looks just like hair....I guess it should....It is, after all, yak hair!

I do the back of the head first.  I run glue from the top of the crown to the bottom of the neck area.  Then I spread out the hair on that area and cut it off at the neckline.

The front is done in two sections.  I decide where I want the part.  Then, from there, I run the glue down the side of the head and with a piece of the hair that has been cut straight across on the end,  lay it carefully onto the head and roughly trim it.

I put the piece on the other side as close as I can to the first one and trim that one too.

I roughly shape the hair the way that I want it, using a toothpick to make it go where it should.

I will do the final trimming after Zar has put his clothes back on.  Shameless! 

Here you can see what the back looks like...He refused to turn around.  His front isn't done yet.

As you can see, I am gluing the clothing right to his form.

I do this because the clothes aren't meant for posterity.  They get replaced often.  Both Zar and Tessie are very active. 

This way, they can do all sorts of things that they couldn't do otherwise.

I will show you the rest of the process tomorrow...Tessie is waiting in line.

She just got hers done a month or so ago, but whatever Zar gets, Tessie wants the same...Well not quite.  She still wants a dress.  No pants.  She tried that once and didn't like it at all.

Anyway, the line may get longer if I don't get back and finish...Gotta run.

See you tomorrow.

There Was a Little Girl, That Had a Little Curl.....

A truce has been called.  Nellie promised to be nicer if I would get rid of that horrid bun at the back of her head and let her loosen up, so to speak...

So, the Terrible Two agreed to let her have her way, with the understanding that, the first cross word that comes from her mouth puts her in danger of going into the stocks for a couple of days.  And they volunteered to build the stocks themselves...

I am not sure that they are thinking straight...That would give me something to hold over their heads as well....Misbehave and to the stocks with you!

Anyway, Nellie got a load of all of the different choices of hair and decided on a practical chestnut shade.  The first photo shows the basic wig.  I simply spread out the hair and glued it to the head, where the hairdo would go.

I used a small metal knitting needle to form curls.  The hair was separated into small strands and wrapped around the knitting needle, then sprayed with hairspray.  There is another method that can be used.  They can simply be put in the oven for a while at a low temperature.

I don't use the second method, because the mohair is very dry to begin with and this will make it all the drier.   Just one woman's choice.

While the curls were drying, I took another strand of the mohiar about the size that you see hanging over Parnell's shoulder.  I twisted it as I did the perle cotton to make a rope.

Again, if you hold it by the middle and let it twist back on itself it will wind up into a nice loose bun.

Nellie says this is much easier on her brain.  Not so tight as to cause a headache.  Maybe that is why she was so disgruntled before.

As you can see, I didn't try for a formal style.  She is, after all, a working woman.  She needs a quick style that will stay out of her way when she is at her embroidery.

It still needs trimming of stray hairs  and maybe a couple of hair ornaments, but she now looks much more relaxed and ready to work.

And she does have the curl in the middle of her forehead...

Amazing, I have not heard even one small curse word from her all morning....But....She just now started in about the clothes. 

It seems that she wants MORE embroidery on the underdress.  It will show at the bottom half of the sleeves and the front opening of her overdress....At least she isn't yelling at me.  It was a simple request.

I have to go hunt up the thread and start stitching.

See you tomorrow.

My Name is Parnell Saintaubin and I Need Help!

I did the face this morning and right away I was sorry that I did it first.  Nellie, as she likes to be called, immediately started complaining.

As an experiment, I did the facial features with Fine point Sharpie pens and a Pigma .oo5 black.  I always use the Pigma, but this was a first with the other pens.  They worked very well.  Much more control than with a paintbrush.

"Where's my hair?  What happened to my clothing?  This is indecency in the extreme!"

You see, Parnell is from the family of  Charles Germain de Saint-Aubin that wrote the "Art of the Embroiderer"  in the 1770s.

She predates him by about 170 years.  She was the black sheep of a large family of embroiderers in France.  She wanted to strike out on her own.  As soon as she hit England she anglicized the name.  It was originally Pernelle de Saint-Aubin.  She quickly learned to get along in the English language and was commissioned by the court as an embroiderer to several of the ladies in waiting, including Lettice...

I had to start the hair quickly. I grabbed some viscose that I bought at the mini show last year.  I have never used it before, so decided to treat Nellie to fancy hair....Even though the hairstyle is quite simple. 

I decided  to do a very simple style because Parnell will be sweating over an embroidery frame all day and won't have time to mess with curls.

This is the simplest way to simulate a part without actually doing one.  I though that those of you just starting the wigging process would like to see it.

It can also be done with mohair.

I put white glue on one side of her head from the hairline to the center line of her head. Then I spread out the hair flat and laid the end over that side of the head, with a bit of excess at the bottom back of the neck.  I let that dry.

Then I applied white glue to the other side of the head.  I flipped the hair back on itself and glued it down to the other side of the head, shaping the hairline as I glued.

I pulled it around to the back to meet the first side.  I cut the excess off and let that part dry too.

After that, I took a piece of the excess about the thickness of a barbecue skewer and maybe 4" long.  I twisted it into a rope. As I twisted, It naturally folded back on itself.  That makes the bun.  I glued that to the back of the head and there she is.

Tessie is sympathising with her and smoothing her ruffled feathers, so to speak. 

I have to get some clothes on her quickly.  She is not a happy camper at present.

As soon as I finish here, I will start sewing.  The sooner I get her dressed, the sooner I can put her to work on the blackwork coverlet.  Gotta run. 

See you tomorrow.

Redheads Have Way More Fun!

Don't tell Tessie that I got this shot! This morning she came to me whinging and whining, "I still have paint hair! Zar didn't do his job... Some hair stylist he is!"

By the time she was done, the whinging and whining had turned into ranting and raving, so I took her in hand.

The nice thing about her hair is, it is about the easiest style that you can do with mohair.

I took of her old hair. That's when, with camera in right and hair in left, I took the photo. If she ever finds out, she is going to have a hissy fit. That's the worst kind in her repertoire.

After peeling it off, I pulled out the "hair drawer" and she pawed through all of the colors. I knew that she would pick the same color that she always does, but she likes to have a choice.

She settled for her "natural" red and we went to work....We didn't invite Zar to help...

I took one end of the braid of mohair and fanned it out. Then I cut it across the end in a straight line, making sure that the very end turned under, towards her face.

As I was trying it on, she told me, "I could have been in that "Tangled" movie. Seventy feet of hair is nothing. OK, so she was a blond....That's OK. Everybody knows that redheads have waaaay more fun!". Then she followed that with, "Take me for example."

I kept moving. I glued the hair around her head, with the trimmed end circling her face. I cut the hair off at the back of her head, very close.

Then I took three strands of the hair, about six inches long. Each strand was about 1/8" wide.

I made Tessie hold one end and I braided the other. Then I wound it around into a snail shape, tucking the end under the edge and simply glued the whole thing to the back of her head, covering the cut ends at the back.

When we had everything in place, I called Zar into the room for the finishing touches. We put a purple band around the bun to match today's apron. Tessie pulled the plug on him when he tried to use the dryer on her finished hair. So, instead he shot hairspray on the whole thing and she was done.

Now on to the rest of the day. We are going to a movie and an early dinner to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year's Eve!!!

See you tomorrow.