Normally I don't post about the dolls until I've finished them completely, but since I've been talking about the process for making Dian Cecht's hair in the NWM chat on Discord, I thought I would share an update!
Dian Cecht is the healer of the faeries, and my first issue was making his body, since the other God Dolls are done on pre-made doll bodies (that are vintage, so once I run out of the ones I have if I want to make more I'll have to make more bodies), and I couldn't find one with darker skin, which is how I picture Dian Cecht. So I bought the fabric some time ago but only started working on his doll a month or so ago, I think.
A pre-made doll body (lighter skin), and the one I made for Dian Cecht (darker skin)
The pre-made dolls have wire inside them to be poseable, so I did that for Dian Cecht, too - I snipped one wire in a bend that goes from one leg, up through his head, and down into the other leg, and another piece that goes across through both arms, but looped around the U-shape of the vertical wire. The wire I used is thicker than the pre-made dolls, not that I've taken any of them apart, but just the feel of bending it when I sit him down or stand him up is stiffer, but it works well, I think. They also have sewing at their elbows and knees, but I didn't do that because I didn't think it would work well with the thicker wire in place.
Meanwhile, I picture him with thick, curly hair, and I've also not done curly hair for the dolls yet, so that was a learning process, too. I googled for ideas and decided to try winding it around pencils, spraying it with water, ironing it, and then when that was dry, spraying it with hairspray.
That is almost a whole skein of black sock weight cotton yarn - yeah the online tutorials were recommending acrylic because it has "memory" but I had already started winding the cotton when I found that out, and I just went for it, lol. I don't normally keep hairspray for my own hair so I just bought a little travel size bottle to do his hair.
The moment of truth!
Huzzah, success!
Then began the process of sewing it into his head. Some of the curls did stretch out, but for the most part, it held. He has SO MUCH HAIR. Y'all. I thought Laeg had a lot of hair. Laeg is this doll:
...and his hair is most of a skein (one of those embroidery floss-weight skeins on a little cardboard tube? I think they are meant for embroidery anyway as it seems like two-ply embroidery floss, but maybe it's just meant for almost-lace type projects?) as well. His hair is really heavy and posing him means counterbalancing that weight sometimes, hee hee. Dian Cecht's hair is SO MUCH HEAVIER. He's sitting up right now and I have something propping up the bun of his hair or else he'd tip over.
Dian Cecht's hair, in all its glory:
This is before I put it up, so you can get an idea of how much it is. Each one of the pencil twists, I cut in half before I sewed it in, so there are 138 strands of hair in his head (I wound what was left of the skein entirely).
This is how long it is when he stands up:
...so yeah, even longer than Laeg's!
And here it is once I put it up into a bun for him, looped over a couple of times:
So now I just need to finish making his clothes! :)
To be continued...
