Hair

Top Tips

When adding hair, think of the flow and direction of the strands. A centre parting splits the hair down the middle, a side parting can sweep a fringe across in front of the face, where as a slicked back style moves from the front of the head to the back. By understanding the flow of hair, you’ll know where you need your stitches to start and end.

I normally start with the body of the hair and once that’s done, add more detailing around the fringe and front of the face which often flows slightly differently.

Crochet Details

When embroidering hair, I cut a long length of wool, fold in two, and then stitch on. You’ll use more wool than you think you will, especially if you’re embroidering a full head!

For starting hair, I leave a long end and the same for finishing. If I can, I tie them together, but there’s normally so many stitches it doesn’t matter and holds itself in place.

Straight

As you embroider, you’ll want to keep the wool flat to the head and pull through so there’s no slack. Be careful not to pull too tightly or you can deform the head shape.

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• Pull the double stranded wool through your parting leaving a tail
• Keep the strands flat to the head and sew to desired length
• Work your way around the head, keeping the strands laying flat next to each other
• This should result in an even coverage of hair all over
• Finish off the main body of hair, then add fringe detailing

Curls

For curly hair, before you start embroidering the hair you’ll need to twist the wool as tightly as possible. Then when you embroider, don’t pull the wool tight in each stitch, this creates the little curls at the end of the hair.

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• Pull the double stranded wool through your parting, leaving a tail
• Twist the wool tightly – the tighter the twist, the tighter the curl
• Sew to desired length but don’t pull the wool taut, the excess wool will create curls
• You can manipulate the curls gently with your fingers for desired shaping
• Finish off the main body of hair then add fringe detailing

Coils

For coils, I use a completely different technique from embroidering.

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• Cut small strands of wool
• Bend them in half
• Insert the hook in the opposite direction of the way you want the hair to lie and pull through a loop
• In most cases you’ll want to insert your hook towards the top of the head
• Pull the ends through the loop

If you want to go for even more volume, after you’ve attached the wool to the head, you can separate the wool into threads. I used this technique along with a range of colours to make up the above fire genasi. This technique is very time intensive as you have to go around every single stitch on the head – but the effect is worth it.