Let’s start by addressing my absense!!

    Am I done with this website?!?  Absolutely NOT!  I now have a nearly five month old baby, a three year old and a five year      old!!  Ahhh what is life?!?  I currently exclusively breastfeed Virginia, my daughter, so between feedings and typical day to day stay at home mom duties I haven’t had time to really focus on this website and even any crochet at all!  I did however dabble in some fiber arts that is not crochet and/or m
Where will this site be headed?!?

       Slowly headed  back to posting free patterns and fiber arts related content regularly. 

What have I done lately?

ROVING WOOL. 🐑🐑🐑That’s right. Good old raw roving wool of spinning yarn and felting. I stumbled upon a really cool new trend. Synthetic dreadlocks. Now these dreads can be made using either roving wool or synthetic hair. Wool is lighter and easier to make and wear but can look fluffier than hair dreads. I got my toes wet and ordered some roving wool from Wistyria Editions roving wool in one gram increments. 

I chose chocolate, lilac haze, grape, and berry. You can find those HERE. (Sneak peek of single ended dreads). 

 How did I turn roving into dreads?!?  Let me show you!
First you will need:

*Roving wool.  Divided into the thickness you desire. A neat trick is to twist the wool to measure the final thickness you wish to have. 

*boiling soapy water. I used dove bar soap. Works great!  The water needs to be hot. You may need to reheat it multiple times during the rolling process. 

*kitchen dish gloves. The thick kind. The water is hot!  

*textured towel. Or,bubble wrap. I prefer a towel. Less mess 

*time. Lots and lots of time. These take FOREVER. And that’s for normal people without three kids and a house to clean. 

Now there are two different types of dreads. Single ended and double ended. Single ended is one dread with a loop at the end for your hair to go through. Double ended is twice the length of the single and resembles,just one long dread, tapered at both ends. Another difference in dreads is you will need half of the amount of single ended dreads you would use if using double ended   Technically a double ended will make two dreads  when installed. I decided to make single ended because my wool was shorter in length. About 12 inches. You can buy various lengths. I hope to work with 36 inch next time and attempt hip length synth sounds. 

For the first part of the dread you need to make the loop end. I used Tina Tianens video on how to create the ends. She includes TWO methods. You can see her video HERE. 

Once your dreads are ended you can start the rolling process. Did the dread into the hot water/soap solution. Begin to roll dread back and forth over the towel/bubble wrap like you would when making a dowel or rod. Add water and pressure as needed.  Roll roll roll roll and ROLL!!! This is the part that takes forever. It really takes time and effort to get the dread formed. You will know it’s working when you are unable to split the dread fiber between your fingers   It will be one rolled mat. 

Should look like this!
For thick hair, you will need around 85-100 single ended dreads. That’s how many I made. Now let me say, it cost significantly less to make my own. Premade dread sets cost hundreds of dollars. It’s labor intensive. I can see why. 

My set came out like this:

Now to install!  This also takes FOREVER but it’s worth it. Section hairnoff into four quadrants. You will work with one quadrant at a time. Using about 20-30 dreads perm quadrant. Take small size of hair, slightly smaller than dread itself.   Pull hair through loop at end of dread. Separate hair into two even parts   Using dread and two strands  of hair, braid hair onto dread/with dread. When you reach the end of your hair, secure with tiny hair band. Repeat a bajillion times until hair is installed!

Upkeep: 

  You can keep the dreads in as long as 1-2 months. Possibly more depending on hair growth. Then they need readjusted or reinstalled. YES you can wash them!  Wash your roots as normal. For the dreads themselves, dilute shampoo with water in small bottle or bowl. The dreads get VERY heavy when wet so make sure to really wring them out. I think that’s about it!

Here’s a before and after install pic. 💁🏻