Hooded Towel and Bath Mitt Tutorial

There's nothing worse than trying to wrap up a wet, squiggly baby with a small, poorly absorbing towel.  Am I right?  One of the best gifts we received were some beautiful hooded towels adorned with ribbon and lace and embroidery.  As pretty and fancy as they are, I really just needed more big, fluffy hooded towels to get the job done once Audrey got too big for her baby towels.  So I ran to Walmart, bought two bath towels and one hand towel and made up some big girl towels for Audrey.

With two little girls at bath time now, I've needed to make some more hooded towels, so I took pictures as I went in case you'd like to make some, too!

What you need:

2 full size bath towels
1 hand towel
matching thread
sewing machine
scissors
pins

(I used 2 bath towels and 2 hand towels so they would match)

1.  Fold your hand towel in half like a hamburger (not a hot dog...) and cut it into 2 halves.

 

 

 

2. Make the hood:  Fold one half of the hand towel in half with wrong sides together, matching up the cut edges and sew a straight line with a 1/2" seam allowance along the short raw edge.    I like to go back and zig zag the raw edge as well.

 

 

3. Turn the hood right side out and poke out the point of the hood with a knitting needle.

4.  Find the center of the towel (long-wise) and the center of the bottom of the hood and pin them together with about 1 inch overlapping.  Make sure the pretty side of the bath towel is facing you and the back of the hood faces you, too.  I like the overlap because it gives some strength to the joined towels.

5.  Using a zig zag stitch, sew along the four sides of the rectangle created by the joining of the hood and towel with the 1" overlap.

 

 I usually do the edge along the bath towel first, then flip it over and do the 2 short sides and the edge of the hand towel next.

 

6.  Wrap up your wet little one and snuggle!

You can always pretty these up with trim or fabric!

I found these fluffy striped bath towels at Walmart and bought a bath towel and hand towel of each color so they could each have the stripes.  There was plenty of towel left over to make a couple of bath mitts to add to our wash cloth collection!

1.  Fold the towel in half with right sides together and trace your hand with a fabric marker.  Be sure to add a 1" seam allowance and flare out quite a bit at the wrist to give your hand room to go in.

 

2.  Pin the pieces together and cut out along your line.

 

3.  Sew the pieces together with a 1/2" seam allowance, leaving the bottom open.  Zig zag around the outside.

 

4.  Turn right side out and scrub a dub dub!