What To Look For When Making Long Hair For Dolls - The Differences In 100% Acrylic Yarns

What to look for when making Long Hair for Dolls - The Differences in 100% Acrylic Yarns

Hey lovely doll peeps, hope you're having a good day! So over in the Dollblr community here on Tumblr, some people had some questions regarding making doll hair out of acrylic yarn. So I took some time to grab some yarn from my stash and lay out what I know about working with it. It was helpful there, so now I'm copying the post over here so you all can enjoy it and use its knowledge for your own doll needs. That said, if you're interested in the Dollbllr community, go reach out to @plasma-packin-peep/@peepersponies to see about getting an invite. It's a really sweet group of people from what I've experienced so far. <3

Let me give you a quick summary of about five years worth of learning to work with this material.

What To Look For When Making Long Hair For Dolls - The Differences In 100% Acrylic Yarns

Welcome to my desk! Before you are five different yarns from my stash. All of these are 100% acrylic. As you can see, acrylic yarn comes in a wide variety of sizes and softness, and while I can do the same things to all of them, they will behave slightly differently. My favorites of this bunch are the Yarn Bee True Colors and the Charisma. Yarn Bee is the native brand to Hobby Lobby, and Charisma I've found at Michaels. Loops & Threads and Hometown, which aren't pictured here, other brands I've enjoyed working with in their thicker fiber variants, also over at Michaels.

The common wisdom in the doll community is that you use 100% acrylic because it's a synthetic fiber that can handle heat. That means it can handle a flat iron or curling wand without melting, which is what makes it look similar to real human hair on this scale. I haven't tested a ton in the way of other fibers. But one of my dolls, Sass here, uses a combination of 100% acrylic yarn and a yarn that's part acrylic, part nylon, and I wanna say part spandex? It's been like 4 years since I made this guy, and that yarn's label is lost, but you can see that the nylon yarn sticks out a little. It doesn't flat iron nicely into a fluffy, realistic hair, it's more stringy. So useful to know if you want that look!

So here's what we're going to do. I've taken all of the yarns pictured and taken them apart to show you how much fiber I lose on an average yarn prep. I'm gonna show you what that looks like from left to right. My method is to cut my yarn, unravel each strand by hand, then take a wire pet brush to it to smooth it out. Instead of tying my yarn to a hanger or hoop, I hold it in my hand, brush through the yarn gently until I'm halfway through, then flip it and go after it from the other side. This is good for ensuring that my length is preserved. Whatever fiber gets stuck in the pet brush, I then take out, mush together, and brush through again so that I have more yarn hair to work with. After that, I will take a flat iron to it and then brush through one more time, but I'm not showing those last two steps here. That said, sometimes flat ironing does lead to losing more fiber, so that is something to consider.

Let's start with that big chonker. This is also a Yarn Bee yarn, and it's probably ideal for an easy time getting your hair unraveled. I have yet to use this one on a doll, truth be told I got it on clearance and haven't figured out who the color would suit. It's very easy to pull apart and work with, and as you can see, it retains a lot of its length.

Next is the True Colors. This stuff is so soft, which is why it's my preference, and while it can be easy to tear apart, you can still retain a lot of length if you're gentle. Like look at the far right, that's all the fiber I took out of the pet brush and mushed back together. It's still a pretty sizable amount of yarn fiber to work with!

The Charisma is a similar story. Something you've probably noticed is that not all yarns have the same amount of strands when pulled apart. I tend to see 2 to 4 on average when I'm prepping yarn. This is a two strander, and once again, it's soft and delightful. Highly recommend going to a physical store and touching your yarn before your buy it. The softer stuff is my preference given how much I'm holding and touching it.

This yarn from Mainstay I got on clearance at Walmart, and it's actually quite soft to the touch! As you can see, our strands are getting thinner here, which is harder to unravel with your fingers. I loose a lot of length when brushing through yarn like this, and it's hard to mush the fibers back together. Yarn like this is incredibly common, and I'll be honest, I don't love working with it. ^^''' But it may be perfect for your project needs! All depends on what you want in a yarn. If you're looking to give a doll a wavy/curled hair without having to curl it yourself, just unraveling and plugging a lot of these in might be for you!

I don't remember where this seafoam green yarn came from, but I think it might be yarn marketed for making baby clothes. It's very thin, and it knots a little at the ends when you unravel it, which is frustrating. I managed to preserve and reconstruct pretty well with this fiber, but the amount of hassle it takes to get through this for a full head of doll hair is very aaaahhh. Like I said, maybe this works for your project. I tend to save this kind of yarn for stuff like accents rather than the main hair color, just because it takes so long to work with.

And there you have it! Those are my notes about brushing out doll hair! As a quick aside, you don't have to brush out yarn in order for it to be beautiful. Sometimes I like to only unravel it and use it that way, like with my recent fairy doll here. She uses a blend of two True Colors yarns and I wanna say a Charisma for the white. There's even a pink and white yarn in here that I didn't brush out, I just boiled and then froze it around a foam curler and threw it in for more texture, though it's a bit tough to spot in this photo.

At the end of the day, you can use just about any acrylic yarn for your project, the question is really what are you willing to put up with. I know myself, I know that I can put on a movie or chat with friends as I'm unraveling a thicker fiber yarn and then brush it out another time and have it be tolerable. That works for me. As you can see, a staple of my dolls is having really long, soft yarn hair, so it makes sense that this is what I gravitate towards. XD

But maybe you want something different out of your yarn experience. That's fine too! The best thing you can do is experiment to see what you like. Do what makes you happy! There is no wrong way to customize your dolls (so long as you're not putting yourself or others in danger). Go have fun, be kind to yourself, and be safe in handling your materials. And of course, if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I've been customizing since November of 2018, and I love chatting about this art form. To my beginners especially, there is no such thing as a stupid question, don't be afraid to ask for help if you're unsure of where to go.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful day, and happy customizing! <3

writers

Please remember that adverbs are not evil. The advice to avoid them is made in an effort to inspire improvement when showing action.

Please remember that is/was/are/to be/has been are not evil. Sometimes stating things as plainly as possible is the point.

Please remember that telling instead of showing is not evil. There are concepts best left told rather than shown.

And lastly, please remember, writing doesn’t have to be for anyone but yourself.

904 notes View Post

groovyblueworld

1 month ago

My first "profile picture"

My traveling companion has informed me that this blog needs a "profile picture" so I do not look like a "bot". This one was the most recent flattering travel photo, so it will do. My companion had to retake this a few times - pictures at the heights I enjoy flying at are evidently hard to take.

23 notes View Post

groovyblueworld

8 months ago

"Welcome to my Cooking Show"

Make a Pumpkin Gratine with Maple (Weekly Photo 38/2024)

"First grap your pasta, this is a single serving recipe but take as much as you need! Put into a pot and cook the things. We have Pumpkin Seed Pasta here"

Then you need some pumpkin... make sure it's not alive and CHOP. CHOP CHOP. Into little bits.

Chop your other vegetables too. We have onions, garlic and spring onion here. oof.

Pasta is done. Up into the oven pot. Mix your vegetables in.

OH and now...

We need two eggs. And spices. And a bit of milk. Mix them. MIX MIX MIX. Pour over pasta and veggies.

If you are fancy you can garnish it with cheese and spring onion. UP TO THE OVEN FOR 25 MINUTES.

ENJOY.

... the fancy human added pumpkin seeds later on. And had some yogurt with herbs to go with it.

THANK YOU FOR ENJOYING MAPLE'S COOKING SHOW.

.... can I have my blog back now Maple?

".... maybe."

49 notes View Post

groovyblueworld

7 months ago

drdevonprice.substack.com

You Might Not Recover from Burnout. Ever.

What grows from the ashes of your old life?

The data does not support the assumption that all burned out people can “recover.” And when we fully appreciate what burnout signals in the body, and where it comes from on a social, economic, and psychological level, it should become clear to us that there’s nothing beneficial in returning to an unsustainable status quo.

The term “burned out” is sometimes used to simply mean “stressed” or “tired,” and many organizations benefit from framing the condition in such light terms. Short-term, casual burnout (like you might get after one particularly stressful work deadline, or following final exams) has a positive prognosis: within three months of enjoying a reduced workload and increased time for rest and leisure, 80% of mildly burned-out workers are able to make a full return to their jobs.

But there’s a lot of unanswered questions lurking behind this happy statistic. For instance, how many workers in this economy actually have the ability to take three months off work to focus on burnout recovery? What happens if a mildly burnt-out person does not get that rest, and has to keep toiling away as more deadlines pile up? And what is the point of returning to work if the job is going to remain as grueling and uncontrollable as it was when it first burned the worker out?

Burnout that is not treated swiftly can become far more severe. Clinical psychologist and burnout expert Arno van Dam writes that when left unattended (or forcibly pushed through), mild burnout can metastasize into clinical burnout, which the International Classification of Diseases defines as feelings of energy depletion, increased mental distance, and a reduced sense of personal agency. Clinically burned-out people are not only tired, they also feel detached from other people and no longer in control of their lives, in other words.

Unfortunately, clinical burnout has quite a dismal trajectory. Multiple studies by van Dam and others have found that clinical burnout sufferers may require a year or more of rest following treatment before they can feel better, and that some of burnout’s lingering effects don’t go away easily, if at all.

In one study conducted by Anita Eskildsen, for example, burnout sufferers continued to show memory and processing speed declines one year after burnout. Their cognitive processing skills improved slightly since seeking treatment, but the experience of having been burnt out had still left them operating significantly below their non-burned-out peers or their prior self, with no signs of bouncing back.

It took two years for subjects in one of van Dam’s studies to return to “normal” levels of involvement and competence at work. following an incident of clinical burnout. However, even after a multi-year recovery period they still performed worse than the non-burned-out control group on a cognitive task designed to test their planning and preparation abilities. Though they no longer qualified as clinically burned out, former burnout sufferers still reported greater exhaustion, fatigue, depression, and distress than controls.

In his review of the scientific literature, van Dam reports that anywhere from 25% to 50% of clinical burnout sufferers do not make a full recovery even four years after their illness. Studies generally find that burnout sufferers make most of their mental and physical health gains in the first year after treatment, but continue to underperform on neuropsychological tests for many years afterward, compared to control subjects who were never burned out.

People who have experienced burnout report worse memories, slower reaction times, less attentiveness, lower motivation, greater exhaustion, reduced work capability, and more negative health symptoms, long after their period of overwork has stopped. It’s as if burnout sufferers have fallen off their previous life trajectory, and cannot ever climb fully back up.

And that’s just among the people who receive some kind of treatment for their burnout and have the opportunity to rest. I found one study that followed burned-out teachers for seven years and reported over 14% of them remained highly burnt-out the entire time. These teachers continued feeling depersonalized, emotionally drained, ineffective, dizzy, sick to their stomachs, and desperate to leave their jobs for the better part of a decade. But they kept working in spite of it (or more likely, from a lack of other options), lowering their odds of ever healing all the while.

Van Dam observes that clinical burnout patients tend to suffer from an excess of perseverance, rather than the opposite: “Patients with clinical burnout…report that they ignored stress symptoms for several years,” he writes. “Living a stressful life was a normal condition for them. Some were not even aware of the stressfulness of their lives, until they collapsed.”

Instead of seeking help for workplace problems or reducing their workload, as most people do, clinical burnout sufferers typically push themselves through unpleasant circumstances and avoid asking for help. They’re also less likely to give up when placed under frustrating circumstances, instead throttling the gas in hopes that their problems can be fixed with extra effort. They become hyperactive, unable to rest or enjoy holidays, their bodies wired to treat work as the solution to every problem. It is only after living at this unrelenting pace for years that they tumble into severe burnout.

Among both masked Autistics and overworked employees, the people most likely to reach catastrophic, body-breaking levels of burnout are the people most primed to ignore their own physical boundaries for as long as possible. Clinical burnout sufferers work far past the point that virtually anyone else would ask for help, take a break, or stop caring about their work.

And when viewed from this perspective, we can see burnout as the saving grace of the compulsive workaholic — and the path to liberation for the masked disabled person who has nearly killed themselves trying to pass as a diligent worker bee.