In August, we finished reading (for the second time) the first book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Book Series, Little House in the Big Woods (one of my favorites by the way). In there we read about how Laura and her sister Mary do their hair up in rags to make them all curly and special for their first trip into town. I thought it would be fun to do this ourselves to go along with the book.
I found this instructional step-by-step guide and video on Wikihow to help us get started.
First, we found an old t-shirt that we could cut up and use as our rags. We wet Mrs. Sayuri’s hair and rolled it up in the rags and then knotted them to keep them snug.
Here she is patiently waiting for her hair to dry so we could take out the rags and see the beautiful curls.
Three to four hours did the trick with her fine hair.
In the book Laura and Mary sleep with the rags in their hair, but I didn’t have Mrs. Sayuri sleep in her rags since I didn’t think she would be able to sleep comfortably like that. Her hair is so fine though that keeping them in for a few hours during the day worked fine.
I didn’t roll the back strands as tight as the side and front ones and I took too much hair for each rag tie, so those curls were looser and didn’t hold their shape well, as you can see in the above photo.
-Over all we had a grand time experimenting with rags though. It was neat doing things the old-fashioned way.
How fun; Mrs. Sayuri looks so pretty with her curls and baby girl looks fascinated by them. Great pictures.
What a great idea! My mom read the Little House books to me when I was little and I loved them too.
What a great idea! My mother go through the Small Residence books to me when I was minor and I cherished them as well. Mrs. Sayuri appears so fairly with her curls and infant woman appears fascinated by them. Great photos.
The photos are very sweet. What a great follow-up to the book!