Ventilation - The Art of Knotting Hair

I have had a couple of queries regarding how to learn to ventilate and/or comments from people who remarked that they were struggling to ventilate, so I thought I would post a little help here.

Ventilation is a difficult process to describe accurately solely by words, so I thought I would post the video that I found most helpful when I was learning:

Tips:

1. Get a large piece of tulle or wig net instead of lace, a ventilating needle & holder and some hair. Pin a piece of the tulle or wig net to your block SECURELY. Ricky doesn't have his pinned very securely, but then he is a professional so he can get away with this, but if you are learning and your tulle/net is flapping, it makes it just that bit harder as you don't know - at this stage - how to compensate for it.
2. Practice catching one hair in the needle. It is much easier to learn to ventilate if you focus on one hair.
3. It's all about the tension! - The way that a knot is formed relies very heavily on the wig maker having the correct tensions between the hair that is held in a loop in one hand and the needle that has caught the hair and is pulling it through in the other hand... if the tension on the needle is not strong enough, you will struggle and end up losing the hair out of the needle.
4. Don't pull too much! If you pull the hair strand hooked on the needle too far away from the loop in your other hand you will struggle to maintain the correct tension. Keep it small and neat. You need enough hair pulled through but not too much that it becomes loose and falls off the hook. 

Once you have mastered ventilating several rows of single strand hair, you can then progress onto using a piece of lace (which has smaller holes) and practice some rows on there. 

Ventilating - Step 1 ~ The Extended Nape

The past couple of weeks have seen me finally getting time to set to and start ventilating. It's great - I really enjoy it and I find it very relaxing. However, let's be frank for a moment... Boy oh boy does it take a long time! I know I am not 'up to speed' yet; I can feel each time I pick up that needle holder, that I am getting into the process and the rhythm quicker than the time before, which is progress.

As one would normally ventilate a wig from the nape upwards, I have been focusing on the extended nape to begin with. Admittedly, it will take me longer to ventilate this wig than if I were making one without an extended nape, as that extension is a good deal more hair to add than if it were not there. This is compounded by the fact that the lace I used in that area is very fine (lots of tiny holes). It would be easy to add way too much hair there! As I do not want to end up looking like Cousin Itt: http://tinyurl.com/7qw6j6o, I decided to go light on the ventilation. I would say the first inch is probably what most people would term light density and the rest is very light. I am realising that I truly am a less is more hair wearer. The pictures I am showing are from a little while ago, as I have actually now finished this section (and will post more up-to-date pics shortly). So what you see is the more densely ventilated area at the bottom, starting to lighten out towards where the honeycomb lace starts.

I have plaited/braided the hair to keep it out of the way while working. At this stage it seems easier to plait/braid it, than to try and use clips, which get in the way as I have not worked a large section. When I take the next round of pictures, I will be sure to photograph the hair loose, so you can get an idea of the amount that has been used.

To be honest, I do think that at this stage there is a real art to getting density right. It is hard to judge! I have been trying to think about my own hair and how that looked before I had any hair loss. The hair I am using is not good hair - it is processed and a mixture of strands, it is naturally wavy and I know it would be really easy to put too much in, as my own hair strands have always been finer than this. So... with that in mind, I am trying to achieve coverage (of the foundation) without over-dense ventilation. I keep reminding myself that this whole process is me learning and mistakes are allowable.

A tip - if you are ventilating a lot, find a movie or some music (or something!) that you can listen to. I really think it helps to keep a rhythmn and to just get into the zone. I have been ventilating to DVDs, the radio, tv shows. I even ventilated to all 3 Lord of the Rings movies - strangely inspiring and motivating seeing as so many of the characters on there are wearing lace front or full lace wigs!