Most of you probably know that I love to sew hooded towels. I usually like to make cute animal hooded towels but they can be cute even as just a basic hooded towel. These towels are so handy too because they work great for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and even beyond. They are easy to make and cost less than $10. Can’t beat that can you?
And…my 4 year old’s a goof ball and likes to make funny faces in pictures.
So, today I am going to teach you to make a hooded towel. This tutorial will teach you the basics of hooded towel making that can be used to make just a regular hooded towel or one of my animal hooded towels.
Hooded Towel Tutorial:
Supplies Needed:
1 bath towel (any size)
1 coordinating hand towel (you will only use half)
*You might need a heavy duty needle for this. My machine will sew through this just fine, but be warned, your machine might struggle sewing through several layers of towel. If you break a needle you might want to try getting a heavy duty needle.
Start out by cutting your hand towel in half. Then, with the finished edge fold it under about 4 inches or so and sew that in place:
You can decide which side you want to have on the outside of your hood and which you want inside. If you are doing an animal face you need the bottom part-the part to be the face. So NOT the part you see above. Flip that over and use the other side. If you are just doing a basic hooded towel, just choose which part you like best.
If you are doing an animal towel, you will do the face now. Otherwise proceed to the next step.
Now, fold the hand towel in half so that right sides are together (meaning your outside part is inside for now). See the image below. The polkadots are the right side of the fabric so I have fold them together so that they are touching and are on the inside. You are going to do a zigzag stitch up the raw edge to form the hood: (so in this picture you are sewing on the right side)
That’s it. Your hood is done.
Now, on the bath towel, on each of the 2 sides fold the edge under about 4 inches and sew it in place: (this has a decorative stitch-you can use that or just a straight stitch)
Now, find the center of your towel on the long side. You are now going to form a little pleat that looks like this. To do that you are just folding about 1 inch in from each side and pinning it in place:
Zigzag that pleat into place.
Now you need to attach your hood to your towel. Center the hood so that the seam of the back of the hood matches up with the center of the pleat you just made. Pin the rest of the hood in place along the top of the towel and then zigzag it in place:
It should look like this when you are done:
And that’s it. You’ve got yourself a hooded towel!
Now, be sure to check out all the animal hooded towels as well:
isn’t this up early? I thought it was next week’s lesson?
This is next week’s project. I needed to have the post up before then so that when the time comes you can all do it. :)
What do we do if our machine ONLY does a straight stitch? I have no zigzag option :(
Really? I didn’t know there were machines like that. But you don’t ever HAVE to use a zig zag, it’s just a more sturdy stitch. So, when it asks for a zigzag just use your straight stitch.
This is the machine I inherited from my husband’s grandmother, I’m sure all the ones that are newer than 80 have a zigzag… LOL.
Thanks! :D
Thank you! We are expecting two grand babies this spring, and this will make great gifts!
Is there a trick to getting the material to fit in the sewing machine better ? My towel was kinda thick and it was tough to pull it through
No tricks I don’t think. Just do what you did.
I think on most machines there is a way to lessen the tension of the presser foot, which might help with thicker fabrics like that.
Dumb question alert!!!!! The step for the bath towel that says “on each side fold the edge under about 4 inches and sew it in place”, is that all four sides, or just the long sides, or just the short sides? Thanks!
Oh sorry-I can see how that would be confusing! Just the very ends. Not the top and the bottom, the sides.
could you add the words “hand” and “bath” in wherever it says “towel”? maybe when I have my towels in hand I will understand it better, but for now it is confusing. For example – this part “Now, fold the towel in half so that whichever part you want to have for the outside is on the INSIDE for now.” – is that the bath or the hand? I think its the different towels used in the pics that are confusing me. Thanks! My daughter and I are very excited to try move onto this lesson!
I just went through and tried to clarify a little. Thanks for the advice!
thanks so much!
The thickness made it a struggle to start and backstitch without it looking messy. I tried pushing it gently from the front, and pulling from the back and stitching super low, but all of my start/ends look like choppy wiggly satin stitching. Is there something I can do different to make it prettier? Also, sewing the ends of the towel in, four inches, was a little tricky because my presser foot wanted to slide off the “hump” of the thick fabric down to the single layer. My stitching is anything but straight! But I love the lesson and the experience!! I’m anxious to try one face. I want a dragon for my granddaughter! :)
Good point. I usually don’t start my stitching completely at the end if it is really, really thick there, I start in about a centimeter. I think keeping the presser foot where you want it just takes practice. You’ll get it!
Do you cut the hand towel in half the “hamburger” way or the “hotdog” way?
Hamburger. :) I had posted that on another tutorial and someone was like “what in the world is the hamburger way?!” so I am glad you know that terminology.
Thanks for the clarification! I was wondering hotdog or hamburger too! :)
What is the reason for folding in and sewing the sides of the bath towel? Can I skip that step?
Sure you can skip it. I just think it gives it a nice finished look but it’s not necessary. :)
Update: I did take my Morse Apollo 6400 back to the shop where I had it serviced and he gave me a manual to a Montgomery Ward machine which is similar to mine in features! :) Thank you for that advice. Also for older machines like mine (1950-65) the straight/zig zag stitch are the same you just adjust the width wider and it becomes a zig zag. Mine stays a straight stitch on the 0 setting. I love this series!
Oh that’s good news! And good info!
Hooded towel complete, looked super cute on my 4 year old!!
Just finished my towel and I even put ears on it. Very proud of myself. Thanks so much for this series. I am learning so much. My burp cloths didn’t turn out to great (but i got the lesson and learned a few things) but my towel is rocking it. Lol My grandson is going to be so excited next time he visits.
Nice work!
I was so anxious to do this–wanted to do a hooded towel for my 18 month old granddaughter. I changed the needle to heavy duty and commence to sewing. Try as I might, gently pushing and pulling, the thick towel would not budge…just kept sewing over and over in the same place until finally my electronic (Brother cS6000i) sewing machine made some scary, awful sounds and totally froze up on me. The error message said tangled thread, but that was not the case…it took a lot of investigation but we finally saw underneath the needle plate the BENT needle. With the needle being bent and not in the correct pathway, and because it was frozen (including the handwheel–would not budge even manually) we could not bring the needle up. Tried to take the needle out and that wouldn’t work since it was wedged tightly and stuck from underneath. Finally, my husband had to cut that sucker out! This took about an hour and 1/2! After that I tried to insert the needle I’d previously taken out and crazily, it wouldn’t go back up all the way (wouldn’t hit the needle stop) and that made no sense (the entire needle HAD come out so that wasn’t the problem). After I tried all I could to make it go in, my husband turned the machine upside down, just so he could get a more detailed look–he then inserted the needle and it went in all the way. (Obviously, I’m not going to be very happy if this is how I have to insert needles from here on out, turning it upside down?! Crazy! Not sure why it went in like that and not the “normal” way). I’m thinking it must have knocked the area around the needle out of alignment or something (despite us being as gentle as possible). My machine seems to be working okay for now, and hope it will continue to do so. I do love this sweet little machine, especially the fact I don’t even have to use a pedal. Obviously, this particular machine will NOT let me do a hooded towel (it has let me sew a rag quilt with no problem), which is too bad. I won’t be trying a towel on thre again…I just hope my machine will keep working and no damage was done (since this machine is fairly new and not used much at all)! I do have another old Singer, which seems to be a real good workhorse, so maybe I could try it with that, but not sure I will. Anyway, not sure why I’m telling you all this…I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to make the towel, not your fault of course…but I’m sticking with your lessons (thank you so much!) and hope I’ll have better luck in the future. I really do want to learn how to sew, it just seems like more times than not the fates are against me in this. I’m wondering if anyone with this machine actually were able to make a hooded towel. I wonder if it would have worked properly had I inserted the walking foot?! Anyway, thank you for all the lessons you are providing us…I’m trying not to give up!
Oh wow. I am SO sorry! I have had other readers say they’ve had a hard time getting their fabric through too. I think some machines just handle it better than others. Sorry that happened to yours!
Wow, sorry that was so long…I’m an extremely fast typist and didn’t realize it was that much!
Hi, I am so excited to make the monster towel! I just read through the instructions for the basic towel and im just wondering if i need to sew the pleat? Im worried my machine won ‘t sew through all that but also just wondering if it’s necessary to do the pleat? Thankyou!
Nope, you don’t have to. It will still work just fine without it.
First I want to say, this is my very favorite website! I’ve made 3 hooded towels and they are so cute. For those having issues with thickness, I found it easier to decrease the pressure adjustment lever. You may want to give that a try.
I do have a question, when you sew the hood to the towel, are you putting right sides together and making a seam or are you laying the hood slightly over the towel and just zig-zaging it on (wrong side of hood to right side of towel). I actually put right sides together to form a seam but your pictures look like you may do that differently.
Thanks so much for all your posts! Just love them!
I layer one on top of the other. Does that make sense?
Makes sense. I will try it that way. Thank you!
I don’t understand how you are to attach the hood . I have trouble with patterns I ha e better luck with pi ture showing how to do all the presedure.
You just center the hood on the towel with the hood on the outside of the towel and zig zag. Not with right sides together or anything, just one on top of the other. Does that make sense?
Thank you for this tutorial! I made Monster Bibs yesterday and this will be the perfect addition to my Monster themed gift for a friend. I am adding Monster Children Books to the package and I know it will be well loved by the new Mommy and Daddy who have been joiking that they are looking forward to their newest little monster.
By the way a walking foot makes sewing over the multiple layers a breeze.
Oh that’s a fantastic baby gift set!
Question about the hood…do I only use one half of the hand towel after cutting it in half? It doesn’t seem very big after cutting it.
Yes, you use half. Some of my readers haven’t liked the sizing and end up using the whole thing instead.
I have a sewing machine for two years and have only done basic alterations ie hems but can’t wait to try this
thank you for posting it .
Good luck! You can do it!