Ginny Weasley GoF hat - 1st attempt/prototype

I saw patterns for the orange bucket hat that Ginny Weasley wears in GoF, and I attempted to make my own version of the hat. I had several issues with the design once I had finished that I intend on fixing and trying again. For reference, I have a screen cap from the movie. It's not the best picture, but it shows the basic design of the hat. In making my own hat, I didn't quite want the "beehive-ness" of the original, I wanted to try and make it fit more like a beanie. I'm planning on making more of an Inspired by Ginny's hat rather than an actual reproduction.

The first thing to point out is that Ginny's hat was ORANGE, not grey. I used grey because I had a ton of it sitting around. I also didn't thread a pastel rainbow ombre through the eyelet round, because I didn't have one at the time. I've since noticed that her hat in the movie also had burgundy at the top eyelet rounds, whether or not I'll stick to that will depend. I'm not even sure that I'll ever make a bright orange hat either, because despite it being accurate for the movie, I don't know if I would never wear it. Also, I'm not exactly going for movie accuracy so the color is totally up to me.

Here are some of the major problems and things that I had with the hat: The first for me to point out is the brim. I know that in order to get this to look like the movie hat the brim is going to be loose, but I don't like having loose hats. It drives me crazy, plus it curls up. I'm thinking of doing this in ribbing and EITHER not having the bow or the rainbow threaded through on the first tier OR threading it through the ribbing. I haven't decided.

The second one is that I needed to do more than 1 row or purls in between the tiers. Probably 3 would look the best. Another thing to add to my brim issues is whether or not the hat will separate into sections as nicely if the first bit is all ribbing. I think the only way to figure that out is to go ahead and knit it. If I don't like it, I'll take it out and start over.

My final problem I have had to do with threading the contrast yarn through the eyelets. I didn't like doing it. It was always either too tight or too loose. The eyelets weren't my favorite part. Another thing I'm debating about doing is skipping the "eyelet round" and just placing removable stitch markers as I go to thread the yarn through. I'm pretty sure that the threading issues are mostly personal issues.

Hopefully I'll get my second attempt started and completed soon enough. I don't think that I'm going to be going for perfect movie match. I like the style of the hat, and I want one similar. I want to actually wear it though, and if it has a loose brim I won't ever want too. The orange is debatable, I may actually wear it, if it turned out to be cute enough.

EDIT (8/2/1007): New ideas for a tighter brim. I'm thinking I could do the 1st half of the brim in ribbing, then switch to stockinette. Then the "eyelet" round could be in between the ribbing and the stockinette and it would look closer to the way it should. Not sure yet. I'll probably start this project soon since it is a fairly quick project to finish. I did the first one in a day.