Hooded Towel Tutorial

I saw this at kojo designs and have been wanting to make it ever since.
I put it off for a while because we have plenty of towels at home and I couldn't justify buying more

but then Target had a sale... 

all towels, all sizes, for $2.99! 

So I gave in and got enough towels to rework them for CJ, Mak and Bean. Woo hoo!
I wanted to make something a little more "delicate" for the ladies and found this tutorial at The Cottage Home.

And then, I found a downside.
I couldn't seem to find an easy to understand tutorial for making the hood portion. Now, I've been sewing since I was able to reach the sewing pedal and my mom has been quilting for at least 25 years and neither of us could figure this ridiculously simple thing out! {I mean absolutely NOTHING personal to those who have made tutorials before me! Maybe it's my baby brain and my mom's menopause that made it so difficult.}
So I decided to make another attempt at explaining the process. Hopefully it will make it easy for you because, truly, an unembellished hooded towel takes no time at all! I mean it... 10 minutes. Maybe!

What You'll Need: 
1 bath towel
1 hand towel
decorative fabric, ric-rac {optional}

What To Do:
One: If you'd like to decorate your large towel, do it now. I used a square washcloth and the letter "M" to decorate hers. I didn't do anything to the body of CJ's. What you do here is up to you. When you're done, set the towel aside.
Two: Cut off the embellished edge of your  hand towel

Three:  Lay your towel out flat.
Note: if you'd like to embellish the hood like I did for Mak and Bean then head over to The Cottage Home for some ideas. 

Fold the towel in half so that the cut edge is now with the finished edge {in my case, the edge with the tag}

Four: Stitch up two ends to create a rectangular pocket.

Five: Turn your "pocket" inside out and lay flat with open end towards you.

Six: This is where the manuever comes in that is SO simple to do and yet SO hard to explain. Here goes nothin'...
Place your left hand inside the pocket and push your fingers up to the top right corner like so... 

 Now, use your other hand to invert the top right corner and grab it with your left hand.

 Pull the inverted corner, with your left hand to the top left corner and use your right hand to tuck it in neatly.

The bottom right corner will naturally invert itself into the bottom left corner. Tuck that in neatly too. When you're done, you'll end up with this...

Now, all you need to do is open it correctly to create the "hood"

And there you have it!
You can now top stitch around the sides and part of the hood that goes over the forehead to secure it into place if you'd like.

And... to attach it...

Seven:
Fold your bath towel in half and place a pin at the top center.
Place it outside-up {or embellished side-up} on your work surface.
Find the center of your hood, and place it opening-side-up on your bath towel.
Match up the center marks, pin into place and stitch across the bottom of the hood, securing it to the bath towel.

You can then open up the towel and run one more stitch across the bottom of the hood for added security.

And you're done! 

 

linking up to The Idea Room