low profile hats

[bwink]

I am trying to do a circular patch design on an unstructured, low profile hat. The design comes out fine on flat material but when put on the hat, one side of the design goes flat. I am using the backing for hats. Is there something else I need to be doing?
Thanks

[Juli in Kona]

If it were me doing this job, I'd make the whole thing smaller and save myself a ton of grief! How tall is it? A reg hat can only take a 2.5" tall design before running into problems. And a low profile even less.

Juli in Kona

[HERB]

IF you are getting them hooped well(2 pcs backing minimum) and IF the design was set up for caps, I would examine the underlay. Are you getting the cap sewn to the backing first? All the way around? Or is the underlay kind of element specific?

[bwink]

I am only using one piece of backing, so will try two. Also the patch is 2.5 inches tall. Guess I'm pushing the limit. I can't make the patch any smaller because it has writing thru the middle and I have that as small as it will go, Oesco .15. If this doesn't work..is there a patch glue I could use to put the patch on after it is sewn?
Thanks for the help.

[Shuffletown Embroidery]

I'm having a similar problem with an oval design. It's only 1 3/8" tall x 2 5/8" wide. Even with proper underlay, the center front seam is skewing from bottom to top.
I'll try the 2 layers of stabilizer, but is it possible that the stabilizer should be narrower for low profile?
Hats aren't that expensive, but I'm rapidly running out of my extras.
Mary

[signman]

Here's what I do, and I do the digitizing and spec samples here, send them out to Dick & Pat to sew on their 12 Amayas & XT's and they say it works perfect on their end also.
I setup the design to do any lettering down on the brim first...center out.
Then whatever design there is above it (or if just a design) I do a quick outline of the whole image in normal walk stitch, 20 pt, to tie it to the backing. Then the design is sewn out-and whenever possible, always with the bottom (brim area) first, center out to edge, work your way up. This way you have tied everything down to the backing...lettering, always set for 5.5 or higher (less dense) and as you are sewing, excess material is going to be pushed 'up' to the top of the hat and out of the way.
If you sew out design first and then lettering down to the brim-all the excess material is being forced against the brim and has no where to go so it bunches up and/or moves the face of the hat.

[Shuffletown Embroidery]

The stitching has improved with the second layer of stabilizer and moving the placement of the design as far to the bottom as I dare.
I know it's not the design; it was professionally digitized by a reputable company for this job. It's an oval with lettering on top of the oval (no design elements outside of the oval perimeter). The first thing that stitches is a run-stitch outline of the oval, then a fill-stitch underlay running 90-degrees to the direction of the top fill.
I don't have a lot of experience with low profile, unstructured hats and this is why.... they're a pain in the you-know-what!
This has become a very low-profit day. Sigh!
Mary

[Shuffletown Embroidery]

I think maybe ya'll might be interested in how my cap job turned out.
Well, I was limping along, painstakingly watching each cap. (I had inserted a centering vertical and horizontal line underneath the underlay so that I could confirm that the cap was straight when it started. This helped.)
Along about cap number 8, I was exhausted. My hands were very tired and my thumbs were in pain from all the effort that was necessary to close the clasp. It dawned on my that I was working TOO hard. If it was this hard to do, no one would take on caps! Even though I had adjusted the cap frames at the beginning of the job, I decided to readjust them. I loosened them quite a bit so that I wouldn't have to work so hard. What a difference!
The other thing I did that I will confess to is I followed Herb's video advice too well. In the video, he hoops a structured cap. I thought I understood that the side clips weren't necessary unless you were embroidering the sides. Eliminating the clips was a BIG mistake for an unstructured, low-profile cap.
I hope my experience will help a newbie somewhere.
I'll sign myself off as
"more-experienced-with-caps-Mary"