Hooded towel tutorial

I love hooded towels for babies and little kids. One of my friends made me a super cute one for my boy and I have made a couple for friends. They are so easy and they make great gifts!

First you will need:
-1 cute little kid ;-)
-1 bath towel
-1 hand towel
-Coordinating ribbon or a scrap of fabric (at least 4"x24" size piece of fabric)
-Coordinating thread
-Extra wide double fold bias tape that matches the color of your towels. (This is optional but I think it makes it easier to finish the raw edge instead of trying to fold it up and sew through a bunch of thick layers of towels with your sewing machine)

Here is my little fella all wrapped up in his new hooded towel

First, take your hand towel and cut it so it is 24" long

If you are using fabric, cut it to 4" wide by 24" long.

Press the edges of your fabric up 1/2" along the long raw edge

Fold your hand towel in half lengthwise (hot dog style!) and place your strip of fabric or ribbon about 1 1/2" away from the fold and pin it.

Un fold your towel and sew along the long edge of your fabric.

I cut off the bulky hem on my hand towel to make it easier to sew through.

Fold your towel in half hamburger style (Right sides together) and sew along the edge of you short sides (the ones with the arrows in the picture). I apologize for the graphics in this pictures but I'm not fancy and I don't have photoshop so this is what I came up with in Paint haha :-)

Flip it right side out and it should look like this. With all the sides sewed except the bottom edge. Take Corner "B" and tuck it into corner "A".

Here is a picture of me tucking corner "B" into corner "A"

So it should look like this.

This is your hood! You can cut the bottom edge of your hood so it all lines up evenly or if you have a bulky edge you can trim it too.

I like to sew a 1/2" hem along the folded side (the side that will wrap around your child's face) just so that it lays flat. This is not necessary I just think it makes it nice.

Now for the bias tape. This is the trickiest part! I know it's kinda hard to tell from the picture but one of the edges sticks out 1/8" more. You want to have the side that sticks out 1/8" on the bottom and the shorter side will be the one you sew on top. You want the wider side on bottom so that you make sure it catches underneath when you are sewing.

I like to sew my bottom raw edge together before I put the bias tape on it so I don't have to worry about it shifting apart while I sew the bias tape on. Wrap your bias tape around the bottom raw edge of your hood and pin it.

Here is my hood with the bias tape pinned on it

Start sewing along the top edge of the bias tape. I would recommend taking out the pins as you go so you make sure that the bias tape isn't twisting or starting to slip off of the edge. Sometimes you have to pull it tight and pull it up as you go. Then trim any excess bias tape off of the ends.

This is what it looked like after I was done sewing it on.

Find the middle of the long ledge of your a bath towel and center the hood and pint it.

Sew your hood onto the bath towel along the bottom edge of your bias tape.

Then I like to flip it over and sew along the top edge of the bath towel to make sure its all secure.

Voila! This is how my hooded towel turned out. This is a picture of the inside of the hood where it is sewn onto the bath towel.