Well, I felted the hat last night. Compare these pictures to the one I posted yesterday:

I was right that I would lose some of the definition of the cable. But that's okay; the sacrifice was worth it in order to end up with a hat that would fit on a normal, non-cartoon-character head. It actually looks a lot better on me than on the wig head. (Probably because my head is bigger.) The hat is still just a tiny bit damp, so I'll leave it to dry one more night, then send it out to its new home tomorrow.