You will need

• Copper wire (any colour; 26 gauge; often sold as a beading/jewelry making supply)

• Human hair, horse hair, synthetic hair or yarn

• A kitchen skewer, knitting needle, small dowel or chopstick (different sizes will give you different sized hair loops; start with whatever you have on hand)

• Scissors

• Clear nail varnish or glue

• A hardware clamp

Optional Items:

• Buttons, beads or similar embellishments

• Needle and thread

For Instructors: Visit our Crafting in the Classroom page for information on embodied learning, or click here for further resources about this craft.

Preparing your materials

Sections of hair:

• Have nail varnish or glue ready for use before you begin cutting the hair. Use the disposable lid of a bottle or a similarly small receptacle to hold the small amount of nail varnish or glue that you will use to secure hair sections.

• If you are new to hairwork, you will benefit from working with hair in lengths of 8 inches or longer. As human or horse hair are precious materials, you may want to experiment with synthetic hair (or yarn) before using real hair.

• Create a section of hair to work with by pinching a small section of hair (pinch the hair that would be closest to the head, not the uneven ends). Use scissors to cut the hair, keeping the hair pinched with your other hand.

• Dip the cut end of the section of hair into the nail varnish or glue; dip about 1.5 cm of hair. Your goal is to bond the individual hairs together to anchor them for use. You may want to pinch the varnished or glued section with your fingers to help the section bond and stay together.

• Let the glue or varnish on individual hair sections dry. Consider hanging the hair sections so that wet ends don’t bond to a surface as they dry.

Please note: If you are using a heavy yarn instead of hair, you will not need to secure the ends and can skip the dipping.

Pieces of wire:

• Cut your wire into lengths of approximately 30 cm (1 ft) and fold the wire in half at the midpoint, twisting that midpoint to make a small loop. Start with 4 or 5 lengths of wire.

You are now ready to follow the steps below and start wiring your sections of hair!

Setting up your workspace

• Take your dowel and a section of wire.

• Position your wire along the dowel with the loop at the top. Use your clamp to attach the dowel and wire to your work surface. You want the place where the two wires connect to remain visible below the clamp (it will look like an upside down “Y”) — this set-up will allow you to get as close to the loop as possible with your hair.

• Lay one wire down on either side of the dowel and give each one a gentle tug to make sure they are secured to your work surface.

The method demonstrated here uses a 2-inch hardware clamp, although the clamp size you use can vary depending on your work surface. You may want to insert some small pieces of folded fabric or paper towel between your clamp and your work surface to improve the stability of your set up.

Please note: Some hairworkers do not use a clamp but instead hold their dowel in one hand while manipulating the hair and wire with the other. You can view this method here.

Casting on

• Take one section of hair, starting with the varnished end.

• Bring the hair under the dowel in a “U” shape while making sure that it stays inside the wire. You should leave about 2 cm of hair on the side with the varnished end — this can be trimmed or tucked in later.

• Pinch the hair together above the dowel with your non-dominant hand.

• With your dominant hand, cross one wire over the dowel from left to right and the other from right to left, forming an “X” shape right against the loop of hair to secure it in place.

REMEMBER: Wires never go around the dowel – they just criss-cross along the top, bringing the material closer to you. Right now, the wires should be closest to you, hanging on either side of the dowel.

Wrapping and wiring

• Continue the same movements from the previous step: one hand wraps the hair around the dowel back to its starting position, then the other crosses the wires to secure the hair in place.

• The wire hand can hold the wires taut while the other hand is wrapping hair.

TIP: Always wrap the hair in the same direction (either clockwise or counter-clockwise) and always cross your wires in the same order.

Casting off

• Take one of the wires and wrap it around the hair a few times to pinch it together.

• Make sure that you are only wrapping the wire around the hair itself and not the dowel.

Removing your wired hair from the dowel

• Remove your clamp from your workspace.

• With one hand gently wrapped around the piece of wired hair and the other holding onto the dowel, carefully slide the hair off of the dowel.

You should now have a section of wired hair! You may want to pinch the wire at both ends where it connects to the hair to make sure it is secure; you could also apply glue to the ends to make sure your hair doesn’t start to slip out of the wire.

Experiment with shaping these wired sections into petals or leaves or small rosettes. You can make shapes with the hair loops on the outside or you can create a sharper edge by placing the wire outward.

A couple of Sandra’s creations to inspire you:

Tips for making flowers

To create petals: Shape your piece of wired hair into a petal. Twist the two ends together five times and use the extra wire at end to wrap around and secure them.

To make a rosette: Twist your piece of wired hair into a spiral. Secure the ends with a drop of glue to stop the hair from coming off of the wire. You can also join the two ends on the back of the rosette using any excess wire and the remaining wire off.

 Sandra Klowak

Dr. Vanessa Warne