I finally have all supplies together for reroots, and tried to start with the Evil Overlord's giant Barbie (I think it was called Superstar Barbie? Not sure, and not that relevant anyway).
I have 3" soft sculpture doll needles, so far the problem doesn't seem to be them.
For this particular doll I'm using hair that came off some kiddie hairband-wig costume things from the dollar tree. Cheap stuff, but it seems thicker and stronger than the nice kanekalon and acetate I'll be working with later... which makes this all the more worrying.
For thread I'm using Coats&Clark Extra Strong 100% Nylon Upholstery thread. I tried it doubled the first time, but the second two times tried just a single strand with a knot on one end.
Now, here's what's happened... I'm doing a needle and thread method reroot and I'm following all the directions I've seen:
Doll needle goes in head backwards, pick up thread, needle goes back in head to make loop, put hair through loop and even ends, pull thread (and the middle of the hair) back into the doll head.
It's sometimes a bit hard to pull the hair into the head, and it kind of 'pops' a bit, but that didn't worry me too much. What worries me is that... two or three plugs in, it'll sometimes be almost impossible to get the hair and thread to go in the head, there will be a pop... and my thread will come loose. Not broken, but loose all the way back to the original knot. It's pulling itself out of the hair. And after that, the hair comes out. The last time, the first plug of hair had also been broken in half, apparently by the knot pulling loose through the loop of hair.
I get that that probably means that part of my problem is 'pulling too hard', but I can't get the thread and hair to go in the head otherwise. What am I doing wrong here? Should I use more hair, less hair, regular thread instead of the upholstery stuff (it's not that much bigger around). Maybe work with the head heated?
I'm stumped, have a stress headache, and my desk is covered in hair. Please help.