1st attempts @ wool

Since i am in the swap here...... figured i better get moving on this.

Got some wool roving from the craft shop up the street - a bleached and a natural color - $2.99 for a yard (?) that fills a sandwich sized bag stuffed full. Is meant for making doll hair but is 100%, wool according to the package. The clerk steered me away from some that looked darn near the same and said it was acrylic. Always good to shop in one of our small businesses. :icon14:

Anyway, below is the result. These are 1/16 heads, not sure about the hooks other than they are junk (IMO) compared to others i have gotten from members here. I have a rather large bag of these and consider them my throw away test subjects... learned my lesson on that order but that story is for another day.

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1st attempt on the bottom, 2nd in the middle and got a little closer to a shape i like on the last one up top. Used some pink pseudo marabou in the center of the red head jig - looks great in hand but hard to see in the pic. All have lots of K.Flash and midge flash in the core tied to the shank since the wool creates a transparent look they show up well. Not sold on this material yet AT ALL. Would have rather pulled my own hair out (if i had any) and tied with it. :beat-up: Maybe it will get easier by the time i am done with the swap - just hope i can turn out some decent jigs for the swap. :blush:

Nice jigs Russ!

I think those look good!

Attica those look really good!!!!!!!!!!!

Those sure look like you knew what your doing,,,great profile.

Agree the top one has the best shape. I do like the redheaded pattern the best. Hopefully next week I will be able to pick up some wool and tie some myself.

Redman

I need to get some also - working up some orders now.

I'll probably be the last one to tye this pattern.............

Very nice job.

those are great ties!! where did you get your wool?

Oh I just reread your post atticafish and saw where you were using the roving, it looks good.

I think they look good! Where did the green paint come from?

I like those jigs!!!! I know I struggled with it at first but Redear's tutorial helped a lot, now just waiting to see what the fish think!!!

Those tyes are looking good and the top jig is a killer looking color combo, I would fish with it any day.

Bkabina said:

...Where did the green paint come from?

Click to expand...

The green paint is a mix. Started out with several colors of glitter, lots of clear, and has some babybass green added in to get the hint of green. Will try to get a good picture of the color and get it into the recipe page.

Thanks for all the comments - pretty sure i can get them to look halfway decent but no clue how consistent they will be since it is a new material and technique to me.

One thing learned was that when people refer to 'pulling' the yarn into shape, they are talking about actually pulling it back and breaking pieces of the yarn to get the shape instead of using scissors to trim..... or at least am assuming that. Pulling/breaking it in this way seems like it gives it a decent shape. Found out that it becomes difficult to do this if you have material tied on UNDER the wool because you grab that at the same time. Learning as i go.....

Thanks for the paint info. Looking forward to trying the recipe when you post it.

Nice woolies, those will work for sure.

They look nice. So Would u rather work with craft fur?

Your ties look terrific AF - I don't understand your difficulty - seems EZer to tie a wool clump than a hair stack?

Those look like standard Sickle heads - what's wrong with em? Are they the loose hook batch?

It could just be not knowing how much to use in a clump yet, it probably just takes some more messing with it. So far i would say craft fur or bucktail with a thread neck would be easier to tie, for me anyway. I have tied countless numbers of that style though. The wool was throwing me out of whack because i CAN'T stack it up and try to create the taper before it was on the hook which is the way i do everything else. There is no start or end reference to the wool.... just pinch an inch.

The heads were from a trade not involving anyone who has posted in this thread - all i will say. They are bronze sickles but the points on them are very very thin and bend over easily, there is almost no barb at all on many of them. It is a bag of about 50 ball heads and have only used 20 at most for paint trials..... so far i have pulled out four heads that have had two hooks in a head and one actually had two hooks coming out of opposite ends!!! Combination of a bad batch (not to my liking anyway) of hooks and some one who was trying to pour way too quickly and not watching QC as they went. Is it just me (frustration from this batch) or does the overall quality of the black sickles differ greatly from the bronze?