A Tutorial on Yarn Wefting without Glue
Hello! A friend asked me how I do the thing, so here is a short tutorial to preserve this knowledge. I cannot take credit for this technique, I learned it from another tutorial, but I can’t find that any more so here’s a new one made by me!
And now, the teachings!!!
Here’s what we’ll be working on! You can see a finished weft length, as well as a short carrier yarn that I’ll be documenting the progress of here today.
And here are some materials and tools you’ll need! The crochet hook is optional, I find it useful near the end of a weft. Toothbrush can be replaced by a nail brush or a pet brush if you like, I just like the fine control of a toothbrush. And the comby hair brush is just for big areas, you’ll see what I mean soon.
You’ll also need an iron of some kind, unless you want a very poofy weft. A flat iron meant for hair works wonders, but I can’t seem to find mine so I’ll be using this old guy. I’ll just have to go over both sides of my work.
Let’s begin! First, take a length of yarn about six inches longer than you want your final weft to be. in each end, tie a knot about three inches from the tip of the yarn. This will minimize wasted fiber, as you’re not gonna get more than about three to four inches of length out of any of these kinds of yarns, generally speaking. There are exceptions, and you can and should experiment!
As you can see, the space between my end knots is very small. that’s because I’m just making a tiny weft. you may want much longer wefts and that’s okay! Do what’s right for your project. The process will be the same, there’ll just be more of it.
Next, unravel the yarn at one end of your weft. Then brush it out a little, and then, press it straight. then you’ll want to finish brushing it out.
Now you’ve got an end done and you can see how long your finished weft fibers are likely to be. Neat! But nowhere near ready to use. Let’s cut some strands. I like to use my fingers as a wrap board, and this gives me roughly six inch strands, which is perfect for my yarn.
Unravel a few of your new strands! You’ll end up with curly strands that are much thinner. They’ll also be fiddly and a little fragile, because we’ve taken all the structure of the yarn apart.
Now, you need to get these little guys onto your carrier yarn. The way I like to do this is to fold the strand in half, and secure it around the carrier yarn by passing the ends through the loop formed by the folded middle, like so:
This is where the crochet hook can help, if the ends are being too fiddly.
now pull that little loop snug to the carrier yarn, and slide it to the brushed out end, and attach the rest the same way!
keep going! this is one of the more tedious bits, but you want a decent sized bunch of strands.
Remember how we brushed, ironed, and then brushed the very end? Now’s a fine time to repeat that. You can use the bigger brush now if you want to.
Now, repeat those steps until your weft is full up. When you get to the far end, unravel and brush/press/brush the tail end and then brush it up into the rest of the weft for a fairly seamless finish.
If you want a less dense weft, then spread the strands out along the carrier a little more. make sure to keep them evenly dispersed. and if you want a denser weft, hold two strands together when attaching them to the carrier. When you’re finished with your weft, you can sew it to a soft wig cap, or glue it to a hard wig cap, or in my case, I’ll be trying a new thing, and gluing these directly to my doll for a mowhawk effect.