Hey everybody! I got a lot of interest in my soft fluffy yarn rehairs I did....
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login...so here's a tutorial on how you can do it yourself! I didn't invent this method all by myself or anything - I had been using it for years, but for making faux fur accents on costumes instead, and it's fairly well-known among other creative communities like that. In any case, I thought it would work great for rehairing ponies, and it does! Without any further ado, here's how you do it:
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login100% acrylic WORSTED WEIGHT yarn (AKA standard or medium weight - ask the yarn store person for help if you don't know what to look for!)- do NOT use cotton, wool, alpaca, or any other natural blend. The softer the better, so avoid cheap scratchy bulk yarns like Red Heart or I Love This Yarn.
Hair straightener with adjustable heat setting on LOW
Metal-bristled pet slicker brush A smooth, disposable surface to brush on top of - this is because the pet bristles are pretty scratchy, you will totally ruin the finish on your tabletop if you're not using something like smooth cardboard or cardstock!
Rehair tool - IF you're using the needle-and-thread method instead, follow all the following steps but DO NOT separate your yarn in half! Simply tie a knot in the middle, thread one half of the yarn strand through a hole in one row, and the other half through the neighbor hole in the other row.
Not pictured: GLUE! whatever brand you prefer for sealing roots after using the rehair tool (I prefer Aleene's Tacky Glue)
GETTING STARTED:Cut your lengths of yarn - the longest you can usually get your fiber is about 6" (12" total, since you fold it in half). So, cut a BUNCH of 12" segments (or however shorter).
>>NOTE!<< The following steps for splitting a piece of yarn in half is only necessary for G4 PONIES! Their plug holes are much smaller, and it's hard to fit a whole piece of yarn folded in half otherwise. With G1s (and possibly others), you can skip right to the folding-in-half-for-brushing stage...
Take one piece of yarn and twist it slightly in the middle to expose the segments, like so:
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loginGently separate the segments into two halves, with two segments per half:
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loginNow you take your length of yarn, and fold it exactly in half, holding it firmly in the middle:
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loginTake your bristle brush, and GENTLY and SLOWLY start to brush the yarn from tip to root. Only work your way up a couple millimeters at a time with each brush. You're only trying to untwist the fibers, so be gentle! If you pull too hard, the thin fibers will break, and you'll get a very short plug and unnecessary fiber loss.
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loginThis does produce a LOT of waste fluff, though! This is all the fluff from just ONE plug:
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loginBy the time you're done, you'll have a huge pile of fluff bigger than your pony, haha! Don't let it freak you out, though - this happens because when yarn is woven, it's comprised of loads of single-size fiber segments all twisted together at intervals. When you cut off a segment of yarn and brush it out from the middle, any fiber segments that aren't anchored right in the middle will be sloughed off - so it's just the ends of other fibers that you've cut.
Anyway, you now have one fluffy little fiber plug! Hooray! If you want floofy wavy mohair-like hair like Pinkie or Sundance up there, you can go ahead and root it!
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loginIf you want silky-smooth hair like Lyra up there, though, go ahead and run your hair straightener set on LOW over it once, give it a brush, then maybe straighten over it once again- It's like TOTAL MAGIC, now it's super soft and silky, like this:
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loginNow just pick it up in the middle with your rehair tool...
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login...and pop it in!
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loginNow look at that long silky hair plug!
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loginfluttershy: "yay."
After you've filled in all the plug holes, coat the roots inside the head in a generous helping of glue, then let it dry for 24 hours. Once it's dry, you can brush and style as you like! I should note, though, the un-straightened wavy yarn hair isn't very brushable - it's just too thick! It can, however, be teased, styled, separated, and combed through with your fingers...
Making the tail uses pretty much the same method: Tie a bunch of strands together as if you were making a normal nylon tail, then just brush 'em out! (Note, you don't have to split the yarn strands in half before tying them together, though.) Easy peasy~
I hope you all enjoyed the tutorial! If you wind up using this method to rehair any ponies, please show me, I'd love to see what you make!!
<3 Anyway, have a good one!