Here I present my latest sewing tutorial: how to make a hooded poncho towel.
We go to baby swim class every week and had doubled up on our baby towels the last few weeks; packing two in Ellie’s swim bag rather than one. But suddenly they seemed to shrink overnight and they aren’t really making the grade, even used two at a time.
After eyeing up the best that the other swim kids had in order to get ideas on what would work best, I decided to go towel shopping for materials. I was lucky to find bath towels (70 cm x 140 cm) on sale really cheap. Likely because they were brightly patterned, which may be off-putting for a bathroom, but brilliant for making kids towels. I also got the co-ordinating hand towels on sale (55 cm x 100 cm).
A quick google for tutorials on making hooded bath towels pulled up lots of really nice blogs giving good tutorials but none were what I was after. I just don’t like the look of the home sewn varieties on offer – they all look the same – like 2 towels just sewn together rather than a proper hooded towel like the one in my head. I also envisaged a poncho-style getup instead of sticking a hood onto a bath towel. It’s a personal preference really as Ellie is still only 10 months – she won’t sit still and keep herself wrapped in a towel with the hood up – but grapples with anything on her head and tries to crawl away when I am drying her after swimming. So for us, a poncho towel that she can’t crawl out of and that will keep her snug and warm whilst she dries is what I was looking to make.
Another bugbear with the available tutorials that I managed to find was that they don’t mention how to finish the seams. If you have ever sewn towelling then you will know that it leaves very messy, fraying ends. If this item is to take a fair amount of usage then it really needs properly finishing. Maybe everyone has overlockers? I ended up allowing a big seam; 5/8″, and finishing all raw edges by folding under and stitching (like adding a hem for each raw edge – discussed during the tutorial).
Lack of a decent (proper) hooded towel pattern sent me to the drawing board and 10 minutes later I had my hood outlines (these will be available soon to download for free as part of this pattern).
To get to it….
I made a bug version (with antennae) and a cat version (cat ear template included in pattern download), but the hood can also be left plain.
1) You will need a bath towel (approx. 70 cm x 140 cm ) and a coordinating hand towel (approx. 55 cm x 100 cm). Choose thinner (but still soft and absorbant) rather than thicker towels as it will be easier to sew together – the seams can get very chunky.
2) Print out the hood pattern pieces and assemble together.
3) Take the hand towel and lay in half. To get a nice (easy) finish to the hood outside edge we can take advantage of the existing edging on the sides of the towel. When laying out the hood side pieces be sure to pin so as the hood outer edge runs along the edge of the towel (so pin in place with the curve in the top right corner to the outer lined up to the towel edge).
4) Pin the centre hood section and cut on a fold.
5) Take the centre hood piece and cut a piece of towel with the trim edge on it so that the two can be stitched together in order to make the outer of the hood sections all line up nicely with the same trim. Stitch these together (use minimal seam allowance on the centre hood section) so that the trim now runs along the towel edge. To finish the seam if you’re not overlocking; fold the seam 
allowance over, tuck under and reseam to itself (for example see step 8 or look up how to sew a ‘turned and stitched seam’).
6) Take one of the hood side pieces and the centre piece and lay out as shown. So that the trim edges are together.
7) Start pinning into place along the top edge (as shown) and curve the hood centre panel around the corner of the hood side piece and down to the bottom. Repeat to pin the second hood side panel onto the other side of the centre piece. Sew using 5/8″ seam allowance.
** NOTE: If planning to make a bug towel and add antennae then mark a small gap on the top seams just before the curve starts. Leave these gaps in the seams open. Stitch the rest of the seams. For adding cat ears (or teddy bear, rabbit etc - any ‘big’ ears that you draw out) you get a better placement by cutting a slit into the hood after the seams are finished**
8 ) Finishing the rough seams.
You will probably find that the raw edges are messy and fraying (not to mention you’re covered in lint by now!!). If you have an overlocker then these seams need tidying up. I’m not so fortunate so protected my seams from fray damage by turning each seam raw edge under itself – to hide the 
fraying edge. I have shown a picture of them pinned into place but I actually found it easy to turn under and stitch down as I went along with the machine. The photo’s aren’t the clearest as the towel seems to blend togther well to disguise the seams when they folded this way. On the second picture you can see the stitched down seam edges, it is more visible on the green towel.
I do recommend finishing seams properly for this project as towels need to be pretty hardwearing. Because they are also a good size, you will get many years usage out of them if constructed well.
9) Constructing & fixing ears.
a) Bug antennae – Cut off the wider towel trim from the shorter edge of your hand towel. If you are careful you can just cut away all the towelling to leave a nice piece of sturdy edging about 55 cm long. Cut into half to make 2 antennae.
Take the first piece and fold in half. Stitching by hand, tie the thread onto the top edge of the fold and then begin to roll it tightly into itself, stitching into place several times. Keep rolling and stitching to hold until you have a decent sized bug antenna. Repeat. These can then be hand stitched into place in the holes that you left in the hood top.
b) Cat ears – cut 4 x ear pieces from the template. Sew two pieces right sides together (3/8″ seam) to create each individual ear. Turn right side out.
Take the hood and pin the ears in place by eye. Once you are happy with positioning, mark the placement and take the scissors to your hood (I know! – it will be alright 
). Cut the slits fractionally shorter than the ear width. When I placed my ears I chose to put them on a slight diagonal coming forwards from the centre of the hood. Insert the ears into the slits and stitch together. I chose to hand stitch as my machine would not have gotten through four layers! I also used blanket stitch to help tidy up the seams and prevent fray.
10) Take the large bath towel and fold in half. I chose to have mine slightly offset so that the front of the towel would be shorter than the back – prevent trips and too much rise on the back when seated – clever 
.
Pin the neck piece template on the fold so that it is centered. Cut out and discard the template piece that has been removed.
11) Mark the middle back of the towel neck cut out with a pin, do the same to mark the middle back of the hood piece. Right sides together then pin the hood to the bath towel at the neck. Start by pinning centre backs together and work out. Sew using 5/8″ seam allowance.
12) Once the hood has been attached, and before the seam is finished, take the scissors and cut a small slit down from the centre middle a couple of inches (this gives plenty of head room but without losing snuggle factor by having the neck too open).
13) Cut 2 pieces of fabric to use as mock interfacing either side of the neck slit. Make 
them slightly longer than the slit. Width isn’t too important as long as there is enough to fold over and finish the seam as previous.
14) Pin the interfacing pieces onto the right side so they are level with the neck edge and seam into place using 3/8″ seam. Fold the edging pieces back onto themselves (so that the right side is visible and these pieces are tucked on the inside). Finish these edges as before.
15) Finish the edges of the seam that stitches the hood to the main towel. This will also give a hem on the neck edge.
That’s it – finished! Find a child to test on. These are great for all sizes. As part of the testing we found they fit anything from a 10 month old to half a Daddy (if you can find one daft enough..)
The hood pattern will be available for download here soon. You could also use this hood pattern to sew onto a flat towel and make the more traditional style wrap-around hooded towel rather than the poncho, if required.
Very, very cute (and strokeable – turn your baby into a cat substitute!) – furry toddler shrug sewing pattern.
I picked quite a wide ribbon for my fastening as I wanted it to be a bit of a statement and set the piece off. It’s quite a strange mustardy-yellow colour (a bit weird) but it looks really nice with the pale cream colour of the fur. I used a funky patterned fabric (I think it is supposed to be day of the dead themed looking at it – musical skeletons dancing around…) for the lining to make it a bit more edgy and less prissy.
Taking a half decent picture of anything to be “modelled” is somewhat of a challenge lately. Ellie is all go, go, go at the minute so I am not concerned with artistic merit here, rather just pleased to have caught her standing still and showing off the back of the shrug!
I cut out the new shape and salvaged the sleeves from the original. I didn’t resize these but added gathers at the sleeve tops to use up the excess fabric when fitting them back into the smaller armholes that I had cut.
Ta-da!
