So sorry, I’m not sure where this fits into the categories, but it was mainly a fiber project, so I’m putting it here!
More than four years ago, I started washing and combing some raw alpaca fleece to start re-rooting my favorite Blythe doll. She’s a Kenner from 1972, and her poor 50-year-old hairs were all brittle and starting to break off. (She actually had already had a portion of her hair replaced for the same reason, but now it was all falling off.)
While I was in the midst of prepping the locks to re-root her scalp, a two-day-old kitten showed up in our life and I was sidetracked for a good long time. Thanks to the current Nerd Games theme, I finally got the kick in the pants I needed to root this scalp.
Here it is in all its glory!
(cue the angel chorus)
It’s not quite attached to her head completely, but we tried it on to make sure it seemed okay before glueing.
(Kenner Blythes actualky had a really interesting mechanism for the way their hair was attached. The rubbery scalp would fit over a hard plastic dome with a slot in it that would click into place on these tabs on top of the doll’s head. Hoeever, with animal fibers like alpaca, the hair needs to all be the same direction coming out of the scalp or it will felt, which means I had to knot every single little plug of hair on the other side, leaving no room for the hardcap. Luckily, in my experience, Tacky Glue usually works well enough (while still being removeable if needed). The tricky part is holding the scalp down while it dries… which is where we are. She might be stuck like this until tomorrow (or longer) but hopefully soon she won’t have to wear a hat all the time!
*also, bonus photo of the teeny kitteh, Quilly, who is now four years old:
