How to: Hooded Towel

Wow, am I behind on my posts, or what? Tomorrow is the beginning of April, and this post is about my niece’s birthday, which was March 1st. As they say, “better late than never,” right? I’m gonna go along with that for now.

I decided to make Leanna a nice big hooded towel for her 1st birthday. The ones you buy in stores are so small and thin, which probably works alright for smaller babies. But, I thought there should be something better to get Leanna all nice and cozy after a bath. Here’s how I made it:

1.Materials:

You’ll need 1 nice big bath or beach towel, and a hand towel to made the hood.

2. Make Hood:

A. Cut the hand towel in half (in the direction of the shorter height, not length)

B. Using one of the newly cut halves, fold in half along the unfinished edge (This should make an almost-square shape. If you fold it the wrong way, you’ll get a super long rectangle).

C. Sew the unfinished edge together to make a triangle shape for the hood, and turn right-side out.

3. Attach Hood

A. Fold the towel and hood in half to line them up correctly. (This is easier than measuring). I put the hood in the middle of the longer side of the towel, that way the towel can wrap around Leanna when the hood is on her head.

B. Pin the hood in place and sew it on!

4. Add Embellishments

A. I cut the letter “L” out of the unused half of the hand towel to place on the middle of the big towel. You can make shapes like flowers, stars, or whatever you like. This “L” was super easy to cut and sew.

B. Using a stitch that will keep away fraying, stitch along the edge of the letter. I used a fancy honeycomb stitch, but a regular zig-zag stitch would probably do the job just as well.

C. I also decided to add some purple rick-rack to the edge of the hood. I just used a straight stitch and sewed along the edge of the hood.

5. Give it away!

Here’s Leanna and her dad opening gifts at her birthday party. She put everything that she opened on her head, and this one actually fit. : )