Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 10:05:30 -0500
From: Kim.Salazar@em.doe.gov
To: Multiple recipients of list <knit@geom.umn.edu>
Subject: KNIT: Feedback - Stabilizers

    FEEDBACK:  STABILIZERS FOR BASEBALL CAPS
     
    Again, the accumulated expertise of my fellow Knitlisters has 
    provided me with a deluge of help.  I summarize the 
    recommendations:
     
    1.  Some people wrote and recommended white-glue based 
    stiffeners (the brand name of one is "Stiffy"}.  Others 
    indicated that these stiffeners can loose their stability when 
    wet and if applied too liberally, make the finished product too 
    much like plastic and unsuitable for sewing.  Some 
    experimentation here may be warranted...
     
    2.  A couple of people noted that old-fashioned starch, the 
    kind our mothers mixed and gleefully abandoned with the advent 
    of the spray on stuff, would stiffen a closely knit cotton 
    piece enough to shape into a hat, especially if the brim were 
    reinforced with cardboard or other stiffeners.  One person 
    suggested wiring the seams to keep the hat from flopping to 
    cap-shape.
     
    3.  Three people with experience making baseball hats wrote to 
    say that construction was key.  One suggested knitting the hat 
    pieces to the shape of the sew-together pattern pieces 
    illustrated in "Threads" then backing each piece with either 
    iron-on or sewn-on interlining.  Buckram was suggested by two 
    experienced hat makers as excellent interlining/stiffiner for 
    the brim.  
    
    The second suggested knitting the cap in the round, planning 
    the shaping to make the "seams", then fitting the finished 
    piece over a pre-made sewn hat (either home sewn or bought) - 
    the brim would be knitted separately and sewn on over the 
    foundation hat, with a strip of trim or I-cord to hide the 
    hat/brim join.  
    
    The third suggested knitting a large piece of goods, stablizing 
    the whole thing  with a fusable, then cutting out the hat 
    pieces from the manufactured "yard goods."
     
    4.  My favorite suggestion came from Janet Stollnitz who noted that the 
	brim and the hat body needn't be made out of the same material.  She 
	suggested using faux leather or suede for the brim.
    
    All of your ideas and suggestions are making me itch to start on a hat.  
	As has been pointed out before  - So many projects, so little time...
    
        
    Kim Salazar/Seabrook, MD                          kim.salazar@em.doe.gov
    (aka Ianthe d'Averogine, OR, OL, QOC)