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Author Topic: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]  (Read 19381 times)

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Offline SilkSpun

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PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« on: March 21, 2013, 09:57:41 PM »
Hey everybody! I got a lot of interest in my soft fluffy yarn rehairs I did....

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...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:

Materials:
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100% 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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Gently separate the segments into two halves, with two segments per half:
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Now you take your length of yarn, and fold it exactly in half, holding it firmly in the middle:
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Take 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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This does produce a LOT of waste fluff, though! This is all the fluff from just ONE plug:
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By 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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If 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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Now just pick it up in the middle with your rehair tool...
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...and pop it in!
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Now look at that long silky hair plug!
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fluttershy: "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!!
 :frolic:

<3 Anyway, have a good one!
« Last Edit: July 26, 2013, 03:57:35 AM by SilkSpindle »
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Offline Pony Adventures

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2013, 12:21:36 AM »
WOW! :shocked: Thanks for the info. Those rehairs look absolutely marvelous!!

Offline cyberunicorn

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2013, 12:49:41 AM »
these are fantastic I might give it a try one day.

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2013, 01:57:29 AM »
I love how it looks straightened. I love it both ways, but I love the smoothness of the straightened version. I may give this a go at some point.

Offline Stormness_1

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2013, 06:02:17 AM »
Ya know what, I have a box of nan's old yarn under the bed I had no idea what to do with.... Look out bald ponies, you're gettin' yarn haired!
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Offline June

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2013, 06:31:48 AM »
Straithened yarn hair looks really nice, and I assume it's much cheaper than dollyrair etc. I think I might try this :)

Offline Colorscapesart

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2013, 06:46:32 AM »
Lovely work!!  I will have to try the straight approach!  Thank you so much for taking the time and being willing to share <3  Do you mind if I add this to the Arena Tutorial stickies?

Offline JoshsPonyPrincess

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2013, 08:46:42 AM »
Gorgeous! Thanks for all the info :)

Offline PoniesYeah

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2013, 08:54:27 AM »
sonuva... now I gotta think up a new custom! and may plate is already so so full.
G D it your charging such a great price too. You can expect my PM at some point.

Offline Uninu

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #9 on: March 22, 2013, 09:01:05 AM »
Thanks for the tutorial! I will surely try this at some point :D

Offline Roogna

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #10 on: March 22, 2013, 09:50:29 AM »
awesome - will have to try!
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Offline tinrobo

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #11 on: March 22, 2013, 11:06:42 AM »
Bookmarking this for later, thank you for sharing your technique!

(can't get over how stunning that Lyra looks! <3)

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #12 on: March 22, 2013, 11:18:22 AM »
Thank you so much for doing this! I will definitely bookmark this page :)

Offline SilkSpun

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #13 on: March 22, 2013, 02:29:10 PM »
Straithened yarn hair looks really nice, and I assume it's much cheaper than dollyrair etc. I think I might try this :)
It's definitely cheaper! A ball of the yarn I like to use (bernat satin, just regular soft acrylic yarn) is only about $4 per ball, and you could probably rehair a dozen g4s just with that. I guess the only downside is that it's more time consuming, since all that time cutting, splitting yarn, brushing, and straightening each individual plug does take a while.

Lovely work!!  I will have to try the straight approach!  Thank you so much for taking the time and being willing to share <3  Do you mind if I add this to the Arena Tutorial stickies?
You definitely can! :lol: As long as that doesn't make it move off this board, since then I don't think too many people would see it...
« Last Edit: March 22, 2013, 02:30:52 PM by SilkSpindle »
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Offline LeighAnnApanites

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Re: PHOTO TUTORIAL -- Yarn fiber rehairing! [VERY pic heavy!!]
« Reply #14 on: March 22, 2013, 10:24:08 PM »
This is a great tutorial! Thanks for making it. Now I'm not only trying to come up with a custom to try it on, I'm also thinking about what else around here needs some faux fur . . .  :lol:

 

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