Fabrications and Ballet Hair

I had alot of fun this week, diving headlong into my fabric stash and coming up covered in more than a few threads, finding a few pieces of long lost fabric, marvelling at what on earth I could have been thinking when I bought some and ending up at the end of it all with a big smile in my face, clutching some real gems - collected from all over the world, some old, some new all fabricationally fabulous! You can see the strip work dress here , the knit set here, and the bows here


Also Ballet season is back and with that comes some more ballet hair. A simple take on side buns. I started with low piggies that sit just on top of the ear - I find these super cute for messy piggies and they also work well for buns.

Start with a middle part with a t-part at the front as shown. Make two low piggies.

And then take the two front sections and make a small braid and pop the piggies inot ballet buns. More detailed instructions for that can be found here.


Once they are all pinned up, criss cross the braids at the front, wind them around the bun and pin them into place.


Add some bows and fluff and voila - cute side buns with a twist!


This parting also works well for the everyday - shown here with messy piggies with the braids pulled straight back rather than crossed over. The braid looped in with the messy piggies is particularly cute.

Cindy Lou Who!??

A short intermission from the curl chronicals to report on my latest mad cap hair experiment - Cindy Lou's hairstyle. I didn't want to go the full gell/product/blow dry but I was pretty pleased with the end result which was actually quite quick. Hettie's hair was pretty wild so used that to build my little bobble on top of the head.

So first step was the T-part with a high pony and then two braids at the side of the head. Loop these up and secure them. I sewed them into place with pink ribbon but pins would do just as well.


Then I took out a small section at the front of the pony and pulled the rest halfway through. Hettie's hair worked great for this because it was so knotty like I had ratted it - so if you were working with silky smooth hair you would need to do something to it to get some volume.

I then took a pipe cleaner and poked into down into the pony so that it stood up in front of the pony. I wound the bit of hair round the pipe cleaner and then folded it back down and poked it into the pony. You could still see it at the back but I didn't think that mattered all that much.
- a red bow helped hold the pipe cleaner to the bobble at the back.


And yep I guess you can guess what came next - some photos! I'll post a link to this set when I've got it up and listed. Here you go, you can see more here. And those fab over the knee socks? I got them from this lovely here.

Pigtail challenge summary

So last week I set myself a little pigtail challenge. I was allowed 4 pigtails (exactly) and the style had to be fast, easy but still cool. it was a great exercise for me to see how many variations are possible and it was lots of fun to have specific guidelines so I will definitely do it again...just need to think up some new guidelines. Any suggestions gratefully recieved. I nowhere near exhausted all the possibile variations on these styles. So my last pigtail style is a bit hard to see but I did pull throughs on the little piggies at the front and then did high braids for the back two piggies. By the end of the day it had fluffed out nicely and looked very 50's which pleased me no end!

Here is the last style and then below a summary of all the pigtail challenge styles. If you want to go back and see all the styles just click on pigtail challenge over there on my labels in the sidebar.

Ballet Hair

The very first time I went on stage as a tiny ballerina to do my first solo in the under 9 age group I wore this hair style - without Trash Ties and with more pins though! The Trash Ties made it nice and simple and a bit funky too, a perfect ballet hair style. Just make two piggie tails, braid them, criss cross them over the head and secure with pins or trash ties. Add bows or flowers for decoration. This style looks particularly fine with ribbon woven over it too. If your piggies are longer than Hettie's you just need to wind them round the outside of the pigtal and double them back. I have left the ends free coz they looked cute but for a more' ballet look' just tuck them in and pin into place.
Als ich zum ersten Mal die Bühne als kleine Ballettänzerin betritt, hat meine Mutter mich so frisert. (ohne die grünen Trash Ties natürlich) Es war deswegen sehr schön diese Frisur für Hettie am Samstag zu machen.