Adding thickness to a hat?

[King Allen, master of unlocking]

I know that I can add thickness to my hat via the "Solidify" object modifier, but my problem is that when I apply the modification, it nearly doubles the amount of faces on my mesh (it adds faces to the inside of the mesh for some reason). If I don't click apply, and still export the mesh, it applies Solidify anyway. Is there any workaround to this that isn't tedious? I'm nearly finished making my hat, and thickness is one of the last things I need to complete it.

Thanks!

[Artfunkel]

Solidify is designed to turn 2D surfaces into 3D volumes. I suspect that what you want to do is select certain edges and scale them up, possibly constraining the scaling axis.