I finally decided to give a saaaad Dawn a makeover. I spent a half hour carefully plucking out her precious blonde hair. Then I spent SIX hours (I am NOT kidding) from 7pm until 1am putting hair back into her sweet little head. I felt horrible DErooting her. It felt like I was defacing her, though her original hair was in terrible shape to begin with.
Here's how I did it. It probably isn't the best way, but I doubt I'll ever do it again so I documented the process with pictures. If you know of a better way to do this, or have some helpful advise for this page, please let me know.
To remove the hair, I used pointed tweezers, pinched the strand at the root and twisted in a curling motion. The parts have condensed strands and should be treated very carefully so you don't leave a big hole. Try and do these one strand at a time.
Once all the hair was out, I discovered a tangled mass of black hair inside her head behind the eyelashes. During the reroot, I had to be careful not to pull on the black hair so her eyelashes would not come out. (I'm in despair having lost the pic of "Telli Savales" Dawn. Use your imagination here. Oh, and there was this huge lump on the crown of her head. It was ghastly!)
At
first, I tried using a plastic yarn needle, but it was too large for the
tiny holes. Finally I found the largest needle in a set of Singer hand needles
to be perfect. The hair was a package of Fibre Craft "Mini Quick Curls"
I found at Ames in their craft section. They come in blonde, brunette, black
and red and cost $1.19 each. It looks to be enough for two or three heads
per pack. The only straight hair I saw at Ames was packs of doll wigs. 
I chose brunette for this project. The hair comes packaged as yards of a continuous curly strand.
The strands are the perfect size for each root. Once the strands were cut in 6" sections, they were very easy to thread onto the needle. The eye of the needle slipped easily over a curl, then a tiny bit of hair was pulled through the needle so that the needle was laced, and there was about 5.5" of hair on one side and .5" on the other.
The
needle entered the top of the head and was pulled through the neck hole.
Then
the strand coming from the neck hole was knotted and the hair pulled
back through from the top of the head.
A
twist-tie came in handy for holding the
finished hair out of the way while I worked.
This is the finished product. As pretty as she is, I don't think I'll
EVER do that again!
After the Dawn Convention in Nov. '99, I may revise this page to include better ways of accomplishing a hair reroot.
Just one more comment about my personal feelings on altering Dawns (if it means anything to anyone): When I study the doll variations and compare notes on body molds/head molds and their characteristics, it seems scary to think that in 5-10 years I may pick up a customized doll and think it is a unique variation from the Topper manufacturing facility. I realize little girls (and big girls) will be swapping heads & bodies and painting faces and creating fabulous custom outfits. It is exciting to see all the great creations, so I certainly don't wish to discourage it. This is just an area in which I feel torn.
Someone mentioned that it might be better to customize Starr dolls. Would we feel as excited about seeing a brunette Starr?