Drape
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Drape
No, I'm not talking about your living room curtains! In crochet terms, "drape" refers to the flexibility of the crochet fabric that a particular yarn or crochet technique creates. Because crochet usually creates a thick and dense fabric, it can lack drape and appear and feel stiff. Factors that most affect drape are the weight, texture, and fiber composition of the yarn used as well as the hook size chosen. Thinner yarns with a smoother texture will help you achieve a good drape. It also helps if the yarn is a silky type of yarn, like bamboo, alpaca, rayon, and some acrylics. Although pure cotton can yield a stiff fabric, certain types of cotton, like Pima, or cottons blended with at least 50 percent other silky-type fibers can increase the draping quality of the finished product.
You also can increase the draping effect of your fabric by going up a size in your hook selection. By loosening up your stitches, the fabric naturally has more give and flexibility. Thus, even with a worsted weight yarn, you can add drape. You'll just have to experiment with using different hook sizes with your chosen yarn -- you don't want sloppy and too loose stitches (the hook size is too large) or too knotted and tight stitches (the hook size is too small), but many yarns yield a good fabric within a 2 to 3 hook-size range.
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