Hair... Yarn Braids

I love yarn.

For knitting.

For crocheting.

For crafting.

I never knew it could make a kiddo so cute!

Yes.

That is yarn in her hair.

It is used as extensions. Really.

Very simply put... You part the hair in sections and use 2 strands of cut yarn and braid it or twist (as I did) into the section of hair.

Adding- Someone asked what kind of yarn is it... which is important because if you use wool it will "lock" the hair into dread locks... not good. If you use cotton yarn it will take forever to dry and also suck the moisture out of the hair... not good. So use 100% acrylic yarn... the cheap kind at like Walm@rt... the "Red Heart" brand is what I used and what I hear many people use.

Here is a much more complete tutorial... Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care.

I had yarn braids done while we were in UG, because I wasn't really ready to take on her hair. It was a mistake with a capital "M". It was 100% traumatic to her. The lady who did it was super sweet and patient, but she used a minuscule amount of hair that really pulled and hurt Thea... she cried the whole time. It was a major "stupid mom" moment... I admit it now.

I swore we'd not do those again until she was 2. But I changed my mind.

I decided to try it again in quite large sections of hair (about 8x larger than what the lady did in UG). It had some benefits that it only took a little over an hour to do (start to finish) as oppose to like 4 or 5 hours and I still got to practice the techniques and it would not pull and hurt as badly. We had NO tears!

At the ends you can either knot it or band it off and add beads (or not).

I got the beads at Walm@rt... craft section. Yellow and pearly white seemed to sing "You are my sunshine!" And this sweet girly is!

One of the first photos we got of her was all sunny and she was in yellow!

It has always stuck with me that yellow was a perfect way to describe her in so many ways!

The advantage to adding beads to the yarn or African hair types is to add weight to the hair and to keep in laying down straight... some people don't understand that there are practical reason for the things commonly done with AA hair types. Styles like cornrows, braiding, beads, smaller sections of parts, etc... all have a practical/functional, as well as, aesthetic and cultural reasons behind them.

Plus it is just fun to swing your head about!

Oh my isn't she adorable?