Doll Restoration & Reborn Dolls : Do-it-Yourself Tips & Tricks

Felting Needles
For Rooting or Re-rooting Doll Hair

INDUSTRY USES. Felting Needles are used in factories to make plush fabrics, textured upholstery, carpets and many other specialty fabrics. The needles are laid out in beds, just like the proverbial bed of needles that the holy men have been rumored to lie upon in India. The needles are barbed, besides being very thin and sharp, so you can imagine how comfortable that would be.

FOR HANDCRAFTING. Felting needles have been used by crafters to make handcrafted felt projects such as plush animals, fancy pillows and even dramatic textured hats and garments.

Felting needles have also been used to root the hair on beautiful artistic cloth dolls. The crafters push the hair threads into the fabric and the barbs on the needles will tangle the hair threads on the other side of the fabric, so it is "knotted" and will stay in place. This makes it much easier to root a head of hair on a cloth doll.

CLICK HERE
for INSTRUCTIONS
on ROOTING
BERENGUER DOLLS
with genuine MOHAIR

CLICK HERE
for INSTRUCTIONS
on rooting or
REROOTING DOLLS
with SYNTHETIC FIBERS

CLICK HERE
for INSTRUCTIONS
on rooting doll hair using
NEEDLE FILES

SOURCES FOR DOLL HAIR

SYNTHETIC MOHAIR. Barbie doll collectors might cringe at this, but the cotton soft hair on the heads of Barbie dolls is the same type and quantity as one synthetic mohair weft. I see piles of unwanted Barbie dolls at the thrift stores all the time so perhaps that is a source for synthetic mohair. -- Some of the doll artists are using real mohair for rooting, which is available at www.miniworlddolls.com at a good price.
REAL MOHAIR works well with the felting needles. The felting needles are able to grab hold of the fuzzy fibers easily.
SYNTHETIC DOLL HAIR. The inexpensive wispy wigs that I sell in the Shop are a good cheap source for synthetic doll hair. -- Look in the thrift stores for non-collectible dolls with good hair, or for ladies wigs.
HUMAN HAIR. Human hair does not always work very well with the felting needles, although some ladies say they don't have a problem. I use a small round file for rooting human hair. This is a brand new method and a new tool. I end up with wasted fibers when doing rooting. If I use a round file for rooting hair there is almost no waste. Information on the round files will be available soon.