Hair Embroidery “Kapayapaan”

Started July 10, 2009

Finished July 12, 2009

After 20 hours

Human hair on white brocade silk

(Filipino word for Peace)

I took out my hair from my stash and started to learn how to embroider hair all by myself. After a few hours, I am so sure this is not going to be my first and last hair embroidery.

I immediately made use of my latest drawing from the Offering Series, because of the density of the design, in comparison to the earlier drawings. I think this drawing suits hair embroidery because it has only one color. I really love my drawings  and sketches. And I love this hair embroidery technique of making contour lines because it captures the effect of being drawn or sketched in black ink.

I grew my hair long for 2 years and I cut them off all by myself in 2006. I promised myself I will learn how to do hair embroidery one day. And that day is today, July 10, 2009.

July 10 After 4 hours, shown with my own hair

I never thought the hair I kept was this lot. Although they are not that long, mostly 50cm or 20inches, I can already use the hair for embroidery. My hair does not break that often, but it still takes time to thread every 5 minutes or so, because of the short length. It took me a while to find out the best way to anchor the hair when starting and ending a length.

July 10 After 5 hours, with sewing thread, a pin and a hair for comparison

I used 2 strands of hair for this embroidery. I am learning one technique at a time. I will learn other techniques in my next designs. A piece of hair is really very thin, almost like silk. I have not yet embroidered using silk. That would be another thing to learn.

July 11 After 11 hours, seen with my ink drawing on tracing paper

This is so far the latest drawing in the series Offering. It has become larger and more detailed than the earlier drawings. With other embroidery techniques I won´t be able to work that much on the details, unless I use line stitches.

Detail:

Handarbeit / Stickerei in Berlin, Deutschland.