So Close, and So Far: The Gone with the Wind Hat

My Memorial Day weekend was a crafty one, aye.
I didn't swim, I didn't even venture outside of my state, I didn't make it to any parades. However, I got to experience short lines, nearly vacant buses and lots of silence. Oh yeah, boredom. Whoever said boredom is a precursor to creativity didn't have a refrigerator nearby! Empty hands and idle minds....well, they just lead to frequent forays into the kitchen.
Seriously,  I did get outside. The plan was to finish my Stitch in Time sweater and the Gone with the Wind hat.  That was the plan. My hands never even got into the sweater, although I did take my hat over to Arcadia Knitting. I sat that there patiently stitching my hat to the milinery wire. Man, I forgot how unwieldy and wonky a wide brim can be on a hat. The wider the circumference, the more problems in getting the wire to behave. In this case, I wanted the hat to "scoop" downward...but the wire insisted on flipping out so that one part was curved up while the rest was down.  I'd say the hat looked like a Kentucky Derby drunk walked into a wall wearing it. No matter, how much shaping I did with my hands....the wire just wouldn't behave. I was ready to ditch the hat despite all the hard work I did on it. Seriously. Pitch it into the closet where that 1940s crochet with a similar brim resides. That one sits under a pile of sheets, department store cloth bags and other stuff.  It has learned its lesson.
Somehow, I got in my head to dig that one out of the closet after all the frustrations with the latest hat. I thought, "Well, I'll switch gears and finish that!" Like maybe the wire powers-that-be would sit back because they were causing me so many problems with the Gone with the Wind hat. Funny, how the mind magically works that way at times.  I didn't act on that thought though. That was Saturday. That evening I attempted to make a t-shirt. That was a disaster. Drastically, the iron-on I used just left the faintest imprint on my jersey fabric. I also cut out a size too small. I finished the basic sewing, tried the t on. One look in the mirror at the too-small t-shirt  made out of very sheer fabric and I just thought, "Oh, forget it!" No. 2 stalled project. Yesterday,  I put on the Gone with Hat again, fiddled with the brim again for nearly an hour, but I didn't sew anything on it. Finally,  I picked up a crochet skirt that needed its loose ends sewn and cut.  I'm not finished with that part, but it's close enough to being done that I can perhaps say it's the one project that I actually finished this weekend.
For those of you who are experienced at making picture hats with wide brims, what's the secret to getting the brim wire to cooperate with you? In other words, how do you get it to curve downward all the way around? Post some words of wisdom, please! Before I do something drastic with the hat....