what it says on the tin

None other than Ferdinand Magellan is credited with the first circumnavigation of the globe. However, it was not Magellan who accomplished this, it was Juan Sebastián de Elcano.

Juan Sebastián de Elcano (x)

In fact, Magellan set out with 5 ships (Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria and the Santiago) on 20 September 1519 to reach the Spice Islands, the Moluccas, which today belong to Indonesia. The plan was to buy the spices on the spot and not to buy them expensively from the Portuguese. There was still no talk of sailing around the world. He set out with 245 men from 10 different nations. There was still no talk about Elcano. He was born in 1486/87 in Spain and had originally been a merchant captain who had joined the Spanish navy 10 years before the expedition in order to escape a punishment that awaited him because he had illegally sold his ship abroad. He was part of the crew of the Concepcion and was in charge of navigation, whether as an officer or a boatswain is unclear.

Ferdinand Magellan discovering the sea passage, which would later become known as the Straits of Magellan, in November, 1520, the orginal was painted by Oswald Walters Brierly (1817-1894) (x) 

In December 1519, the small fleet found itself on the coast of Brazil due to a gross navigational error. Magellan slowly felt his way along the coast until a mutiny broke out on 1 April. The officers of the San Antonio, Concepcion and Victoria rebelled against wintering and demanded an immediate return. The mutiny was put down by Magellan, but one captain was hanged, one was abandoned and the third had already died during the mutiny. On 22 May, the Santiago was lost. It took a long and nerve-wracking time, but on 28 November 1520, three ships reached the Pacific Ocean after crossing what is now known as the Strait of Magellan. The fourth ship, the San Antonio, experienced another mutiny and in the meantime had turned back towards Spain.

This is a painting of the mutiny to overthrow Magellan. - Stefano Bianchetti (x)

The journey continued for the other three and they reached the Mariana Islands on 6 March 1521. There the men hoped to find food and water, but were attacked by the natives. Only with the last of his strength did Magellan manage to retrieve his belongings and plunder the natives. Supplied with food, the Spaniards arrived on the 16th. March, the Spaniards reached the Philippines. Now wiser from their previous experiences, they looked for an uninhabited island from where they made friends with the natives of one of the islands. Sufficiently supplied with food and water, they went to the island of Cebu where Magellan died because of a promise to support the ruler in an invasion against the neighbouring island.

In the following weeks, many Europeans died of diseases and injuries, so that the Concepcion had to be abandoned. The Victoria and the Trinidad went to Borneo. There Elcano became captain and leader of the expedition. On 6 November they finally reached the Spice Islands and bought what they needed and tried to sail back across the Pacific. The Trinidad, which was too badly damaged, had to be repaired first and was then to return home alone.

Oceanic voyages of Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, 1519–22

Elcano tried his luck through Portuguese waters, but scurvy , which was a big problem in this expedition, struck again and Elcano had to sail to the Cape Verde Islands. His disguise of being a Spaniard off course worked until the Portuguese found the spices. Elcano was lucky to escape with 20 men, but he had to leave 13 behind, who ended up in prison. Elcano arrived back in Spain on 6 September. The Trinidad never made it, because she was attacked by the Portuguese and her crew was put in prison. Out of her 54 men crew, only 4 made it back to Spain.

basically all of my dolls have their hair glued directly to the head. i've made one or two wigs, but i don't really like using them because a lot of my dolls have visible hairlines & hair that lies very flat. i avoid gluing anything on top of the head cap seam so the head can still be opened, but it tends to be a hassle with the way i make dolls.

for materials, i love unconventional stuff like paper, fake plants, or craft foam.

silk clay is a fun new discovery i've used a couple of times & will use again. in both of the above examples i rolled the clay into a thin sheet, cut into strips, and then curled them, but you could do so many other things also.

feathers are cool & versatile because you can embrace the clear feather look, or use the fluffy parts to make something more like fine hair. i've also made feathers out of felt when i've wanted the vibe but not to deal with the finickiness of actual feathers.

all aforementioned materials are just glued straight into the doll head without needing to make wefts of any kind. then there is proper hair-hair, which i don't like working with, but sometimes we Must.

the few times i've done ultra long, sleek hair, i've used old wigs from either my own or friends' cosplay stashes. i've also harvested doll hair. i usually make wig fiber into wefts using hot glue, and then glue them to the head in whatever pattern works for the hairstyle. i hate wig hair though. it's thick and hard to style in doll scale and too slippery to stay put. very situational.

i vastly prefer acrylic yarn. it can be sleek when straightened with a hair straightener, frizzy when left as it is, or curly when styled with a heated metal stick. if you want to curl acrylic hair on a small scale, i would recommend gluing it into small wefts, curling them, and then gluing the hair to the head.

there are a million tutorials about making acrylic wefts, and i recommend following NONE OF THEM. i Do Not Get why the common method is to cut the hair to the length you want and then forcefully tear it open with a brush. you lose most of the hair that way.

instead, buy your yarn as thick and loosely spun as you can. i personally use this one with only two strands. cut it into 50cm - 1m pieces. while keeping the yarn under tension, unravel the strands from each other. then you can just pull the fibers apart gently, and get the maximum length of hair [usually a little over 10cm] out of it without wasting material. if you cut the yarn into short tufts and brush it open, you will get shorter fibers and also a lot of them will come loose and be an unusable ball of fluff.

after unraveling the yarn, i glue it into wefts with white glue on top of a plastic cutting board it's easy to pry of off when dry.

my favorite thing about acrylic yarn is that it can be posed with the doll, and can easily hold gravity-defying positions. also really the only type of hair that it's easy to do short styles in.

you can also do fun things like soak it in glue for a wet look.

Ultimate Note | Episode 25

"The sculpture in the image is “Das Schicksal” (Fate), created in 1905 by Hugo Lederer. The sculpture portrays fate as a ruthless woman dragging two vulnerable bodies by their hair.

The work is currently located in Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg, Germany."

This 1889 beauty in Elgin, IL needs some polish, some work, and the kitchen is meh, but look at her. 8bds, 4ba, 6,040sqft, $550k.