Got kind of an odd question. I’ve made a cornhusk doll and want to put hair on her (horsehair to be specific). My dilemma is that I have no idea how to attach it to her head. The only way that crossed my mind would be to coat the ends of the cut hair in glue and put it on the head, but I don’t know how I’d keep the hair in place while the glue dried. I imagine there’d also be lots of loose pieces falling out as well.
Any techniques on how I could do this?
Just a thought here, well actually a WAG. Couldn’t you use a wide-eyed needle, thread as many hairs as you could through it, push it through and knot it? I think that’s how doll doctors fix the hair on dolls. I know that it involves needles, and with the better dolls they do one hair at a time.
I hope this helps! Good luck!
Sewing it is the only good way, but it’s really time consuming. The best dolls have individually hand sewn and knotted hair, but I’ve found I can cheat it a little and literally cut the work in half. Thread a needle, preferably with a hair many times longer than the hair you want - but minimum twice as long. Make a tiny stitch in and out and pull the hair out the length you want. Then cut the not-pulled-through end to the same length. Knot, and you now have two strands of hair. Repeat. And Repeat. If you have threaded your needle with horsehair many times the length you want, then you can make several passes without having to rethread your needle, which is the time consuming part. You can try doing a few hairs at once through each hole for thicker hair, but it’s probably just going to tear your corn husk - try it on some scrap first.
You’ll have to give her a trim when you’re done, because you’ll never get them all perfectly even, so do it a little longer than you want it and even it out later.
Thanks! Yeah, I was a bit short on time to make her so I resorted to hot glue. It worked, but did look a bit messy around the scalp. Next time I’ll try this sewing technique though.