He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young
. {Isaiah 40:11}

21 April 2011

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! 
 

7 comments:

  1. I like that idea!! Good explaining...you know who also has a good idea you might wanna check out, but don't have to and I won't say anything if you don't heehee, is DIY Dish....they did a little tutorial too....anywho thanks for the inspiration!! I so have got to make some for my son cuz he is still using the ones from when he was an infant and they don't do the job anymore...have a great easter weekend!! xoxoxoxo

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  2. seriously..thank you for the explanation!!..i thought i was loosing my mind not being able to follow the other ones :) thanks! hoping to make a couple of dino ones this week

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  3. Thank you for this! I couldn't figure out other tutes either.

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  4. Thank you so much! I knew it couldn't be tough, but I just didn't get it reading other tutorials.

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  5. have made the other one that martha put out years ago, but hated the raw seam on the hood. this fixes that! thank you!

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  6. for years i made an old martha stewart design that left a raw seam in the head. i love this one that doesn't do that! but i tried to make the martha one with placket in the towel and it was too much for my machine. may try with out the placket.

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  7. Thanks for the step by step pictures. I made it! It worked great. I like you have sewn for years and started questioning how many brain cells I lost in pregnancy/mommyhood that I just was not getting it with all the other tutorials out there. I had been given a hooded towel for a baby shower gift and my son loves it. He asked for one for after swimming. IKEAs striped towels are very affordable and cute... I found that the hand towel is goofy dimension and need to be folded over 3" the length of the towel (with the stripes) so the hood wasn't too deep and flopping over the kids eyes but still held his head. Folding it in half (as you were able to do here) was too much and barely left room for the towel to cover his ears when wearing it. I plopped it on Daddy and it fit him like a hoody would. I hope that helps anyone that is trying to make this from IKEA towels with out a kid model on hand. My kid is 3 with big head. :)

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