The first step to horsehair hitching is to make the horsehair pulls. A "pull" is a bundle of horsehair that has been plied to make it easier to work with. The size and quantity you need will be determined by the diameter of the staff you are hitching around.
These pulls were made for a test bit of horsehair hitching that I was going to do on a 1 inch diameter stick. Scale up or down according to the size of your project. The quantity you need will also be dependent on the size of your project, the length of the horsehair you are working with, and the complexity of the design.
Horsehair is bought in bundles of varying length - anywhere from 27" or so up to 40" or so. It can be bought by the ounce, half pound, or pound. Natural colors such as black, grey, chesnut, and white are available. White horsehair can be dyed if you want different colors. One way to get smaller bundles of horsehair is to look for replacement hair for violin bows. This can be found on a certain large internet retailer.
Suppliers include:
When you receive the horsehair, it will be tied into bundles. Once you undo the ties, handle your horsehair carefully. It is so easy for it to end up a tangled mess. Also, keep an eye on your horsehair if you have cats - it is a very tempting toy - and make sure to clean up any dropped strands. One way to contain the horsehair for making pulls is to wrap it tightly in paper. First, separate your horsehair into two bundles. Wrap each tightly in paper and tape the bundle shut. Leave some hair sticking out each end.
As you make the pull, you will be pulling hairs from each bundle, but from opposite ends. The reason for this is that a strand of horsehair is thicker at the top than at the bottom. So you want to pull half of your strands from the top end, and half from the bottom end. That way the thicknesses will average out so that your pull has a consistent diameter from top to bottom. For these pulls, I was pulling 6 hairs from each bundle, for a total of 12 hairs per pull. Something to keep in mind is that black horsehair will be thicker than gray or white horsehair. In general, 10 black horsehairs is equivalent to about 11 gray/white horsehairs.
As you pull your hairs from the bundle, check each hair to make sure that it is not kinked in the middle or extremely short. Some hairs can also seem brittle, or be quite wiry and kinky. If you have any defective strands, discard them. As you are working the hitching, any broken strands will stick out. Also, a pull can only be as long as its shortest strand, so you don't want any super short hairs in your pull.
Try to even up the hairs so that the ends are all together, and make an overhand knot at one end.
Split the bundle into two groups, and drape them over your knee, half on each side. Take the knot in one hand, and with the other, hold the strands, maintaining tension, and keeping the two groups of strands apart.
Twist the knot as you pull the strands upwards, so that the two bundles of hairs twist around each other.
Twist the strands while pulling upwards until you reach the end of the strands, or the end of the shortest hair. Your pull can only be as long as the shortest hair. Once you have reached the end, tie the loose end with another overhand knot to secure the strands to to keep the pull from unwinding. Because the pull is now plyed and secured at both ends, it will be much easier to handle than a loose bundle of hair.
Congratulations! Your first pull is done. Now you will need to make many more for your project. For my tugh, I will probably need at least a couple hundred pulls in various colors, as well as the dozens of pulls that I made for my practice piece. For my test piece, the pulls were a dozen hairs. For the tugh, I am making pulls of 38 hairs.
Here are some of the pulls that I've made. On the left are black and then white pulls that I made for my test piece of hitching. The group on the right are the pulls that I made for my next tugh project. You can see the difference in size of the two sets of pulls.
References:
Donna Murray, Horse Hair Hitching and Braiding
Petticoats & Pistols, The Art of Hitching Horse Hair
Shona Maulding, Hitched Horsehair the Complete Guide for Self Learning: 1
SmokeSaddlery, Hitched Horsehair: Making the pulls
Western Folk Life Center, Tools of the Trade: Braided, Twisted and Tied / Horsehair Know How
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