Hair Weave/Weaving Hair

 Hair Weave/ Weaving HairMy friend C is receiving chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.  
Before C lost her hair, she decided to cut it off.  She sent it to me so
that I could make her a wig.  Then she decided that she would rather
have a strip of hair that she could sew into the inside of a baseball
cap. Here I am sorting the hair bundles according to length, short
pieces on the ends. I untied the hair and tapped on it to distribute it
evenly over 15" length. The strip of hair will be 15" long, finished,
from temple to temple.Matching embroidery floss to the hair. Embroidery
floss is strong, comes in many colors, is fine and made of cotton,
which is why I chose it for warp and weft.Threaded my Structo table loom
with 15 ends of floss, two ply of floss per warp thread, plain weave. I
make one pic in floss, then set in a small bundle of hair, beat in a
squeezing motion like beating weft for a rug, change shed and repeat.
The green yarn at the beginning of the photo is waste yarn, used to
start the weaving.   The first inch of woven hair was practice weaving,
then I wove a half inch for bendback, and began weaving the actual
hairpiece. Isn't C's hair pretty? It is very soft and shiny. I willl finish the raw edge of the hairband by trimming the hair even with the selvedge and binidng with bias.  The side that faces C.'s sclp will be faced with cotton grosgrain ribbon, for comfort.   I just
got the news last night that C has done so well that her treatment plan
has been revised from 8 chemo sessions and surgery to 6 chemo treatments
(which she has completed) and no surgery. We are doing the Happy Dance
here!