Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Hooded Poncho Towel

My son has a hooded towel that he likes to use after his bath, only he doesn't like that it doesn't stay on by itself. It is the traditional style of hooded towel where the hood is attached to one side. He wants me to add a button to the front so it won't fall off, but I wanted to try a design that wouldn't fall off. I saw a blog post on Make It and Love It a towel that was turned into a poncho. When I went back to look at it again, the post had been removed. She folded the towel in half (hamburger style) and then cut a slit for the head. She sewed ribbon to the cut edges and it fit on the child like a poncho. I liked that the towel stayed on, but I wanted to figure out how to add on a hood.

I then saw a hooded towel poncho on Delia Creates. She cut her slit for the head lengthwise, rather then from front to back.

I then decided to try and incorporate the two and go for it.

I am not the best photographer or the best at getting pictures in the order I want them, but I will describe the process as best as I can.

I started with a regular sized towel for the poncho and a hand towel for for the hood. I folded the bath towel in half and then cut a slit in the middle. It ended up being about 13 inches long. I made sure it fit over his head. I serged the neck opening to keep it from fraying. Then I moved onto the hand towel for the hood.


I folded the hand towel and put it on my sons head to see how to fit the shape of his head. You can kind of see my pin placement on the towel above. I created a curve 2/3 from the front of the hood edge and then curved it down at an angle so it went down to the bottom corner of the towel. I sewed this, finished the edges, and cut it. The pointed angle is important as I cut my head opening so that there would be a V-shape in the front and back of the poncho.

Here is the hood sewn in...
and the finished hooded poncho.
I pinned the hood and towel right sides together. I cut a strip of towel 2" wide from the scraps of the hood to finish the front neck opening. I sewed around the entire neck opening and then top stitched the front binding down.
Here is a view of the back of the towels while handing.
My son loves that it doesn't fall off.