Why is my hat doing this?

[Orit]

The hat is not supposed to have a floppy brim but it is all twisted up to the point that it is not even wearable. I followed the directions accurately. Thanks for your help

[bgs]

Did the pattern give gauge and did you make a swatch to see if you matched it?  

[Orit]

They didn't give a gauge. I used the size thread and hook specified. Is it because the hook was too small?

[NCcountrygal]

4 hours ago, Orit said:

The hat is not supposed to have a floppy brim but it is all twisted up to the point that it is not even wearable. I followed the directions accurately. Thanks for your help

Looks like you may need a hat frame to give the lace hat the shaping you'd like.  I made a summer hat with crochet cotton worsted yarn and a wide brim and heavy duty wire to provide form structure but it too would have benefitted from some of the hat forms. It's been several years and I opted to buy a pre-made that held it's form.  Straw like and some woven threading. 

 Hat frames are used as a stiffened frame or base of a hat that is then covered with straw or fabric.  

MakingItYourself | Etsy

The ones I remember are quite different from what I'm seeing available now.

Hat Bases & Frames from HatMakingSupplies.com (corsetmaking.com)

Edited April 14, 2022 by NCcountrygal
add info

[Granny Square]

Confession, I have never made a hat out of thread.  But I have an impressively tall mountain of thread doilies in my closet I've made over the years, that look much like your hat but without that head shaping in the middle.  And a lot of them have required tweaking, or super aggressive blocking, to lie flat if they are ruffled like your brim, because my stitches tend to be on the short side. 

A smaller hook would NOT help, because the stitch height ratio to width would probably be the same.  Ruffling happens when your stitch height ratio is shorter than the designers'.  What mitigates ruffling is taller stitches, or fewer stitches.  A lot of time I can block ruffling out, but occasionally I have to resort taller or fewer stitches, or both.  Pi x diameter equals circumference, if your diameter is too short due to too-short stitches, the circumference will be too big for the diameter so it has no where to 'go' but ruffle.  It's not that you or I are doing something wrong, or using the wrong size hook, it's that the design by the designer is 'counting on it to like flat' with taller stitches like hers.

HOWEVER, on the good news side, most of the time I can get ruffling to block out without making changes. Your item looks potentially block-out-able to me.

Have you ever blocked a thread item, like a doily, before?  I was about to launch on a tutorial, and will if this is new to you, but thought I'd ask first.  Basically you are going to have to take your wire out and block the brim like you would a doily, with a blocking board, circular template (that you can make yourself with paper and compass) and rust proof pins; and at the same time make a thing to block the 'head part' as NCCountrygal described above.  

You may not need the edge wire if you block and simultaneously stiffen it with simple syrup. The last thing I blocked that way (a bookmark) I swear I could have used it as a butter knife, well maybe margarine knife.  Simple syrup = equal parts sugar and water, boiled so the sugar completely dissolves, and cooled.  I have heard some complain that this attracts bugs, I have never had that happen, the oldest thing I stiffened that was a Christmas decoration (about 50 years ago), no bugs.

 

[Orit]

1 hour ago, Granny Square said:

Confession, I have never made a hat out of thread.  But I have an impressively tall mountain of thread doilies in my closet I've made over the years, that look much like your hat but without that head shaping in the middle.  And a lot of them have required tweaking, or super aggressive blocking, to lie flat if they are ruffled like your brim, because my stitches tend to be on the short side. 

A smaller hook would NOT help, because the stitch height ratio to width would probably be the same.  Ruffling happens when your stitch height ratio is shorter than the designers'.  What mitigates ruffling is taller stitches, or fewer stitches.  A lot of time I can block ruffling out, but occasionally I have to resort taller or fewer stitches, or both.  Pi x diameter equals circumference, if your diameter is too short due to too-short stitches, the circumference will be too big for the diameter so it has no where to 'go' but ruffle.  It's not that you or I are doing something wrong, or using the wrong size hook, it's that the design by the designer is 'counting on it to like flat' with taller stitches like hers.

HOWEVER, on the good news side, most of the time I can get ruffling to block out without making changes. Your item looks potentially block-out-able to me.

Have you ever blocked a thread item, like a doily, before?  I was about to launch on a tutorial, and will if this is new to you, but thought I'd ask first.  Basically you are going to have to take your wire out and block the brim like you would a doily, with a blocking board, circular template (that you can make yourself with paper and compass) and rust proof pins; and at the same time make a thing to block the 'head part' as NCCountrygal described above.  

You may not need the edge wire if you block and simultaneously stiffen it with simple syrup. The last thing I blocked that way (a bookmark) I swear I could have used it as a butter knife, well maybe margarine knife.  Simple syrup = equal parts sugar and water, boiled so the sugar completely dissolves, and cooled.  I have heard some complain that this attracts bugs, I have never had that happen, the oldest thing I stiffened that was a Christmas decoration (about 50 years ago), no bugs.

 

Thanks for the advice. I bunched the hat up as I tried to push the wire through to get it out and as I did, the hat started to lay flatter and flatter. I finally was able to get it arranged so that it lays pretty much flat with the wire in it. I guess it just needed some rearranging

 

[bgs]

2 hours ago, Orit said:

Thanks for the advice. I bunched the hat up as I tried to push the wire through to get it out and as I did, the hat started to lay flatter and flatter. I finally was able to get it arranged so that it lays pretty much flat with the wire in it. I guess it just needed some rearranging

 

Really interesting as I have no experience with hats and wires.  I would be really interested to see a photo of it now that you have it shaped.

[Granny Square]

Huh!  It makes sense that 'gathering' (or in dressmaking 'easing', which is gathering just short of puckering) would work on ruffling up to a certain point; that never occurred to me blocking ruffled doilies, I'll have to try that next time.  I'm glad you are happy with it now!

Edited April 15, 2022 by Granny Square