Sorry for the delay in writing this. I have been so busy with life and wig making. First off, I have just uploaded a short video to You Tube, in which I show you the materials I received from the wig making company. To summarise:
- Monofilament Galloon in 1 cm and 0.7 cm widths
- Light Blonde Galloon in 1 cm and 0.5 cm widths
- Honeycomb Lace in Light Blonde
- Fine Lace (like very fine Swiss lace) - comes in flesh tone
- Stretch Lace (has honeycomb type holes - slightly different to some stretch I have seen) - also comes in flesh tone
- Transparent Thread
I also ended up separately buying a really large reel of blonde colour polyester thread as the one I have is just a regular cotton reel and I know I will probably run out of it at some inopportune moment. I also picked up a big pack of pins too as I find I am using a lot of these and sometimes they break or bend etc.
Here's the video:
I mention in the video that I have been converting a full lace wig into a non-bonded one. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, due to medical problems, the wig no longer fits me correctly for bonding. It means that bonding it is very difficult (more-so than normal) as the wig does not want to lay correctly to be adhered down and secondly, because of those medical problems I find bonding to be difficult because I do not really have the energy to keep my arms in the air for long periods of time on a regular basis. So, there I was with a 16 inch remy wig just lying in my closet waiting for something to happen. I actually really need a wig right now that works for me, as the hair I do have is very short and while I don't mind that, there are times when a girl just wants to have long hair.
So far I have probably spent about half a day working on the wig. I am half-way though. I would say that the effect with this wig is almost like a glueless lace wig, except that the front is no longer lace straight to skin, instead it is monofilament galloon. I shall be ventilating a little more hair into the top middle, as I am parting the hair in the middle - a rarity for me! Parting the hair in the middle helps to make the density less noticeably "pouffy" on top (something that I am trying to get away from as I find it is unflattering on me). I shall also under-ventilate hair into the inside of the galloon as this will help to cover any edge. Once this is finished, I shall be getting it cut into a style and will put up a pic at some point of the finished product.
Anyway, before I started converting the full lace wig, I had finished the prototype cap and tried it on. It fitted me extremely well except for the nape. I think the nape didn't work so well because on my original head mould, I had not managed to cover the bottom inch or two of the back of my head to my nape, so when I put the pattern on the block, I ended up guessing how far my nape extended and so on. Taking this into account, I made a new mould of my head, put it on my block and stuffed it so that I could start making a proper wig cap to make my first wig with. I was mapping out the galloon structure (by default this step essentially creates a pattern for you to follow) and had started sewing the joins, corner darts and the gathers over the ears. Once I have finished the lace wig - by the end of this week - I shall be going back to doing that. I hope to take some pictures so to illustrate what I am talking about.