by Jessi Wohlwend
I love hooded towels, but AJ has outgrown the infant-sized ones we got when she was first born. I found a towel that said it was “toddler-sized” and bought it, and it’s bigger than those other towels, but still not really big enough. I want a big, soft, snuggly hooded towel that I can completely wrap her up in after bath time. So I decided I had to make my own! Luckily it’s ridiculously easy to make your own hooded towel; for this DIY hooded towel all you need is a bath towel, a matching hand towel, and to sew 2 straight lines of stitching!
This DIY hooded towel was so easy to make, I’m planning on making a few more! Plus the towel is so big I’m sure it will last her for years! Depending on the size of the bath towel you buy, you could even make these for teenagers or adults (I think they call the really big towels “bath sheets”).
DIY Hooded Towel Tutorial
- 30 minutes (time spent doing stuff)
- 0 minutes (time spent waiting around)
- 30 minutes (total project time)
Tools
- sewing machine
- rotary cutter or fabric scissors (or regular scissors if you want; it doesn’t really matter how “neat” the cut edge is)
- clear acrylic ruler and cutting mat (if you’re using a rotary cutter, otherwise you don’t need these)
- straight pins
Materials
- bath towel and matching hand towel (I got these from Target and they’re so soft!)
- matching thread
NOTE: You cut the hand towel in half to form the hood, so with 2 bath towels and 1 hand towel you can make two hooded towels. Or just use the other half of the hand towel as a rag.
Instructions
Start by cutting the hand towel in half so that you end up with two pieces that are short and fat.
You only need one half to make the hood, so set the other half aside. If your hand towel has a “right side” and a “wrong side”, figure out which they are. Otherwise just choose which side you want to be inside the hood and which side you want to be on the outside.
Fold the piece of hand towel in half so that the “right sides” face inwards and you end up with another short, fat, rectangle with the cut edges stacked on top of each other. Then pin the cut edges together.
Using a zig zag stitch, sew the cut edges together.
Then turn the hood right side out so that the zig zag seam you just sewed is on the inside; make sure to turn it inside out all the way up to the corner/point of the hood. Then lay the hood out flat so that the factory-finished edge of the towel is at the bottom and the seam you just sewed is running flat down the middle of the hood.
Find the center of the bath towel (along the long edge) and line it up with the center of the factory-finished bottom edge of the hood. Pin the hood onto the bath towel.
NOTE: I just laid the hood on top of the bath towel and pinned them together because I wasn’t worried about the seam showing from the outside/back of the towel. If you want to hide the seam, rotate the hood 180 degrees so that the point is down, then lay it on top of the towel, right sides together. Pin the hood to the towel, then sew. That way the seam will be on the inside.
Sew the hood onto the towel with a sturdy stitch (I used a zig zag stitch again), and you’re done!
The towel is totally big enough to fully wrap AJ up when we take her out of the bath, and it’s soft and snuggly too!
And it’s definitely going to “fit her” for a while; I don’t think she’ll outgrow it anytime soon. 🙂
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Nancy Battersby says
My Mother used to make these for newborns years ago, thank you for the instructions
Peggy says
What size is the towel ? It’s for a new born
Tysm
Jessi Wohlwend says
This is just a regular sized bath towel and a hand towel for the hood, but you can use any size you want! A newborn doesn’t need a huge bath sheet sized towel, but you could use a regular towel so they can grow into it a little. 🙂
Vera says
Do I need to use a special needle?
Jessi Wohlwend says
I just used a regular needle and it worked great!
Vera says
Did you just use a regular needle on your machine or thick needle? Do you need a walking foot for this or just the regular foot?
Jessi Wohlwend says
I just used a standard needle and the normal walking foot for this project and it worked out great!
Andrea Ivey says
Hi! I also used target towels and bought good-quality ones, however, the hood keeps shredding at the seam. I’ve even said two straight lines to reinforce to make the area stronger. Did you wash your towels before selling? Maybe that is the problem? Any suggestions?
Jessi Wohlwend says
That’s so crazy, the same thing has happened to one of my hoods! I made four towels this way and three of them are fine, but one fell apart at the seam. I re-sewed the seam with a wide overcast stitch to reinforce it, and that has helped so far. The only other thought I have is that there’s a ‘grain’ to the towel and somehow I sewed one hood against the grain the wrong way but did the other three correctly. But because of the terry it’s basically impossible to see any actual grain in the towel…so I’m not sure I can actually confirm that. 🙂
Mom of 2 says
You are inspiring! Thank you for sharing your DIY idea. I’m going to try this out for my 9 month old and 3 year old.
I usually get the towels as gifts, but they outgrow them once they are toddlers. The only thing I’ve found that grows with them are the larger towels like this: https://www.amazon.com/Organic-CISCO-RAFFI-Newborns-Toddlers/dp/B0741S4M3F
Thank you!