Cathie's New 'Do

My Bella Cathie doll from France arrived with four hair plugs missing, so I ordered some Ash Blonde (color number 10) Saran KatSilk hair from http://www.restoredoll.com/.  The hair arrived, and I was a little disappointed, because the color is off a little bit.  I wish I could buy a color wheel that had a sample of all the colors on it, but I don't think there is one available.  At any rate, the color difference was not enough to be distracting, so I went ahead as planned.

When I reroot a doll, the only things I need are a pair of scissors, a long doll needle, the doll, and the hair. 

It was actually quite a task to replace only four missing plugs on this doll.  The neck hole is very small (maybe an inch in diameter), and the vinyl is thick and very difficult to push the needle through.  I ended up heating her head up a little with a hairdryer just to make the job a little easier.  Once the plugs were replaced, I used the steam function on my iron to get the new hair to lay down.

Steamy!

Perhaps the most difficult part of this task was getting her ponytail back through her neck and head holes.  While the neck hole is about an inch in diameter, the head hole is even smaller, maybe 1.5 centimeters.  At first, I tried binding the hair together with saran wrap, which was an utter failure.  Then, I decided to use a ponytail holder to bind the hair as tightly as I could.  I then bound the ponytail holder to a pencil, and used the pencil to push up through the neck hole and head hole.  To get her head back on her body, I had to re-heat her using the hair dryer.  Then I was able to squeeze the head back into place. 

Close-up of the new plugs.  Can you discern the color difference?

Welcome to the USA!!