Hooded Towel Tutorial

  I am excited to tell you that this is probably the easiest project I have done so far.  And I am also happy to tell you that I did it twice so you will only have to do it once!  This hooded towel is for a toddler and made from one regular size bath towel and one hand towel.  You will only use half of the hand towel so if you are buying these items you may want to buy 2 bath towels along with one hand towel to make 2 projects.  Here are my towels:  Already had the bath and bought the hand towel for 3$ at the store next door. 


Start by cutting the hand towel in half.  (Hold it as if it were hanging on a towel rack and cut at top) Once you have done that, fold it in half lengthwise and measure 6 in. in to make your "arc" shaped cut.

Now sew only what you just cut.  I suggest lining up the edges, pinning, and sewing from top to bottom seam.  Now you have your hood.

Now you will pin the hood to the towel at the center of towel and bottom of the seam you just sewed.

Then you will pin the sides to the top edge of towel.  You will have to move the towel after pinning one side in order to make the hood reach the other side.  This is what makes the towel wrap around your little one!

Here it is all pinned and ready to sew. I turned mine inside out to sew and used a tight zig zag stitch, but I don't think it really matters... Here it is all finished up!

Now I will show you the first one I made and you can see the lesson I learned:

The one on the left is the first one and the hood is too big for a child because I did not measure 6 in. from edge when cutting my arc.  If you wanted to make this project for an adult you could measure in farther, but you would also want to make the hood longer (not cut towel in half, but just some off one end).  The one on the right is success and we will use it after bath tonight!  I plan on making more and thinking of ways to embellish them.  Maybe a yellow with a Duck face?  Name on the back?  And the great thing about this is that you can make the towels ahead of time and then personalize them whenever you want.
*Note: It was actually very easy to fix my first towel.  It is actually the one Peanut is wearing in the first picture.  I just used a seam ripper and ripped a few inches off each side and cut the hood shorter, then folded the edge over and sewed.  Two great hooded towels for my Peanut for 3$!

Pocket bib from tablecloth

   I am proud to say that this is really my own, original design.  I have found that pocket bibs are so great for catching everything my little Peanut drops while eating.  Not to mention he enjoys checking the pocket for leftovers when he's done.  I think the only member of the family who doesn't like pocket bibs is the family dog.  There is alot less falling to him as he sits under the highchair...
   I pinned some sites from Pinterest on pocket bibs, but decided that if I knew the basic concept I could forge ahead on my own...which as you know is what I love to do.  Decided that waterproof fabric was a must and these bibs are made from a vinyl 60 x 84 in" tablecloth from Walmart (less that 5$).  Didn't even make a pattern for the first one.  Just free handed and held up the fabric to baby to "measure" and came out with a decent product seen here:

    I decided it could be improved upon so I set out to make a pattern and improve it with a bigger pocket and neater looking edges.

     Here is the pattern I drew and cut out of poster board.  ( I drew half and then folded and cut to make sure it was symmetrical) The dimensions for the bib part are 12" x9" and the pocket 3"x14.5"

Here are my cut out pieces:

Then I put them together and folded the bottom as it would be once assembled for pocket.

That let me know where I wanted to sew my velcro rounds on.  I wanted to sew them on before sewing the bib pieces together so the "back threading" wouldn't show.  I used white thread to match velcro.
Here are the X marks so I know where to sew!

And then here are the pieces still seperate with the velcro attached. ( BTW the detachable pocket is great because it's easier to sew this way and it is nice to undo and empty crumbs over trash. )

Then I just pinned the pieces together (yes, I hate to pin but am getting better at doing it...) and zig zagged around the edges.  You can cut off any uneven parts when you are done.  Mines not perfect, but it works great and is a big improvement from my first attempt!

If my calculations are correct, I can make about 7 of these bibs from one tablecloth.  (My calculations are correct about 75% of the time).  So that's about .70 cents a bib.  Not bad and it goes quick!

Hope this was helpful! Sew long!