Waldorf doll hair

[boheime]

I am redoing my children's dolls and am wondering the best way to sew individual strands of hair onto the head. I want to change the hair to be more kid-like rather than baby like (make sense?). I previously bought wigs from Joys, but the longer wigs are expensive. I don't crochet or knit. If there was a way to sew the individual strands on and have a full head of hair, I think I would try it. Any ideas or links?

[RollerCoasterMama]

You could order the "cap" instead of the wig and then hook the hair in that way with a crochet hook. Then you can avoid the pain of knitting or crocheting. (I took that shortcut for one or two dolls until I got the hang of it---crocheting the cap was the worst part of the whole process for me! Now I can knit one up pretty quickly and easilly.) The caps are way cheaper than the wigs!

[BethSLP]

I don't crochet or knit, but I am making a DRD with their kit which calls for a crocheted cap. Everyone assured me that its basic crochet and a beginner can learn.

Well, I found the instructions VERY frustrating, but I spent a few hours playing around with some YouTube tutorials and figured it out. Now I know how to crochet a cap! Its actually kind of fun once you figure it out.

The first thing I did was practice with a regular piece of yarn and not the super hairy mohair. It will drive you nuts to learn with because you can't quite see your stitches and they don't pull out easily because the hairs get caught.

Basically, you need to make your slip knot, do 4 chain stitches, loop it together, and then do half double crochet stitches from there. Amy has all that in the kit, but the pictures and explanations are cryptic for a beginner. I think you really need to SEE it done to figure it out.

I watched the first part of the clip below to learn the slip knot, chain stitches, and how you loop it through. THEN STOP THIS TUTORIAL because she makes a circle with another stitch. Not the one you want.

To start with, use this YouTube clip:
Crochet Circle worked into a Chain loop by TheKnitWitch
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=tWHPZrrzpmY
(stop after she makes it into a circle by latching through the first chain stitch and doing the slip stitch)

Don't freak out if your "circle" looks jacked up. I finallly realized it doesn't look like much until it has a few rows going around it.

Then continue in the circle using the half double which is in this YouTube tutorial:
Half Double Crochet Stitch by TheKnitWitch
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=LxA2os...eature=channel

*If for some reason the links are bad, you can go to YouTube and search for those titles or just search "theknitwitch" to get a whole list of her videos.

Another thing I didn't understand was what "increase" means in crochet. It just means that if you want your circle to lie flatter, you are obviously going to have more stitches on the second round than the first, etc. You don't change the actual stitch you do, or anything like that. You just go around a larger and larger circle necessitating more stitches. If you did the same number of stitches every time, I'm guessing you'd probably end up with something that looks like a tube.

Anyhow, this probably makes it sound harder than it is. When you finally get over the initial hump of figuring it out all out (I spent about an hour a night for two nights messing around watching YouTube and trying things out), its not hard at all. It now makes sense to me when I see Amy say "its not rocket science" and "it gets covered with hair." The nice thing about the furry yarn is that it covers up your mistakes too And as long as it resembles something of a cap, it should be fine.

I am going to post this again as its own post for anyone who might benefit.

Again, I'm not at all dextrous or even all that good with crafts. I like to do artsy stuff, but I don't think I have the best fine motor skills. If I can do it, you can too. And it feels like a HUGE accomplishment once you get something going.

Best wishes!
XOXO
B