Hooded Baby Towel Tutorial

When my daughter was born, my aunt made a hooded bath towel for her. It's a full size bath towel so it was big enough to wrap her in as a baby, and is still big enough to cover all of her at 2 years old! I absolutely love it and now that she's older, my daughter loves it too! I made her a few more so she always has a clean one to use after her bath.

I have started making them as baby shower gifts, and everyone says they love them too. I have had a few people ask me how to make them, so here are the step-by-step instructions with lots of pictures!

This is my first tutorial, so please leave me some feedback as to whether or not it makes any sense!

Step 1:

Buy a bath towel and matching/coordinating hand towel. (the hand towel will make 2 hoods, so you may want to buy two bath towels so you don't waste the other half of the hand towel.)
Here are the towels I am using.

Step 2:

Spread out your hand towel and cut off one end. I cut 7 inches off, this is a good sized hood for 1 year olds and up. You can make it whatever size you need, but don't make it too small or the baby will outgrow it really fast. Big kids may need it to be a few inches bigger.

Step 3:

Decide which is the "wrong" side and which is the "right" side. If you look at the finished ends of the towel, one side is usually sewn under, that is what I consider the wrong side.

This picture is of the towel wrong side up.

Once you have decided, fold the hand towel in half so the wrong sides are together. You will sew the cut edges together.

Step 4:

Once your hand towel is folded in half, sew the cut edges together. Sew very close to the edge, making sure you are sewing just far enough in that the stitches won't come out if the towel frays a little.

Step 5:

If your stitches are more than 1/4" from the edge, trim away the excess fabric, again being careful not to get too close to the seam.

Turn the hood inside out. 

Sew along the same seam, but from the other side this time. This will enclose the frayed edge.

Step 6:

Turn the hood right-side out again. Find the middle of one of the long edges of your bath towel. Pin the middle of the hood (where the seam is) to the middle of the long edge of the towel with the right side of the hood to the wrong side of the towel. I like them to overlap about 1/2". Finish pinning the rest of the hood on.

Sew along the very bottom of the hood. If the towel is very thick, be careful as you sew over the ends and the middle seam as your machine may have a little bit of trouble in those areas.

Step 7:

Turn the towel over and sew along the top edge of the towel just where the hood is.

That's it! Your hooded towel is finished. Now go find a cute little person to give it to, they will love it!

If you would like instructions and ideas on how to personalize your towel, check back tomorrow!
ETA: Here is the link to the personalization tutorial.