Will acrylic shrink?

[baricrazi]

I made a hat for a friend of mine and it ended up too big. He wants it to contour to his head tightly and I tested it on him after every couple of rounds for fit. I realized that it was going to be a little big but I thought I could just decrease a little to fix it. So what I have now is looking a little like a mushroom (it's not that bad but the only thin I can think of). I just did one for myself that when I finished I threw it in the dryer and that made it tighten up a bit but this is going to need a little more. If I was it will it shrink up a bit?

 

Help....need suggestions. Thanks

[Melissa]

Acrylic, being a synthetic fiber, does not felt (what we think of when we talk about sweaters shrinking in the wash). I have experienced that little tightening you mentioned when I wash it, but that won't help if you need more than a little bit.

 

Sadly, I can't think of a way to fix it besides ripping back to try again. However, here's a link to a pattern for a customizeable top-down hat. HTH!

[Sofia]

Melissa,

thanks for the link.

I am a SPecial Ed teacher and help kids struggling with math. One of the obstacles they have with learning math is the feeling that they don't need it--- what is it good for, why do I need to do this.

I work in an arts integrated school and constantly draw the connections between their math and their art ---- and now I have a great example WITH illustration about math and fiber arts! I am thinking about this becoming a project for a class.

 

So thanks for the great idea!

[RoseRed]

When all else fails - cheat!

 

Too big can always be fixed. Too small - sometimes.

 

Acrylic yarn will shrink a little bit. You might want to wash and dry the yarn for 'smooshing' with the hat so that there won't be any additional shrinkage later. Lingere (sp?) bags work great. so do knee highs with a knot in the top so the yarn doesn't unravel or knot up.

 

Time to hang out with the handy-dandy trusty tapestry needle. On theinside of the hat you maight want to try gently and evenly smooshing the stitches closer together. I've found that the blanket stitch (a whipstitch that goes thru the loop to form a knot) works best for this kind of work.

 

I would suggest doing this for all the necessary rows so that the hat doesn't look 'doofy' for lack of a better word at midnight.

 

Let us know how it comes out.

[baricrazi]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

The person I made this for is one of my co-workers. When he came in to work tonight and asked about it I showed it to him and he loved it! I told him I wasn't happy with it but he said it was perfect. He insisted that he buy it form me and paid me $10. Every single other one of my male co-workers has asked for one also and have all said they would pay me $10 a hat. That means 4 more hats. I think it's funny that I work with an almost equal amount of males and females and none of the females have asked me to make anything. I would have thought I would have gotten more requests from the women and not the men. Maybe it's just because when everyone saw my hat they wanted one too. I will have to post a pic of my hat when I have the chance to take a pic.

[RoseRed]

That is AWESOME !!!