How to Make a Hooded Towel | 3 DIY Hooded Towel Tutorials

How to Make a DIY Hooded Towel 3 Ways

Tutorial #1 | Duck Hooded Bath Towel

Hooded Duck Towel Materials:

• 1 yellow bath towel
• 1 yellow hand towel (you only need 1/2 of it)
• 1 orange washcloth
• Scraps of white and black fabric for the eyes

 Duck Towel Step 1: Cut your hand towel in half

Duck Towel Step 2: Fold your hand towel in half so the finished edges meet up where the opening of the hood will be and along the top fold. The raw edges will go at the bottom. Sew the top of the hood together just below the finished edge.

 Duck Towel Step 3: If you want your seam to lay nice and flat you can then top stitch both edges down.

 Duck Towel Step 4: Cut 1 full-size duck bill and 1 “bottom half”- use the finished edge of the washcloth for the straight edge on the bottom part of your bill.
Duck Bath Towel Step 5: Sew the eyes and bill onto the front of your hood with the bottom half of the bill hanging off the edge. I tucked the edges of the bill under so it would have a finished edge.

 Duck Towel Step 6: Sew the bottom half of the bill to the right side of your big duck bill

 Duck Towel Step 7: Flip it over to the underside and sew in place along the edge of the towel

Duck Towel Step 8: Now let’s attach it to the main bath towel. Find the center of your towel and line it up with the center of your hood. I attached mine with a french seam so it wouldn’t have any raw edges. With the hood face down sew it to the towel about 1/2″ below the towel’s finished edge.

Then flip the hood up and sew it down once more. Now you have the finished hooded towel that looks like a duck!

Tutorial #2 | Hooded Monkey Towels

I am Amber from Crazy Little Projects about to show off my latest creation…a Monkey Hooded Towel for baby! Want to see more? Visit my blog or ollow me on facebook, by RSS Feed or on Pinterest

It’s time for another adorable hooded baby bath towel! Each month I make, and teach you to make, a hooded towel. Last month was a Ladybug and before that it was a Frog. This month? A monkey! Let’s learn how to make a hooded towel that look’s like a monkey!

This is the first time I have done a monkey towel and I have to say, I LOVE how it turned out. At first, I was worried that it might end up looking like a bear, but all the little kids at my house, while I was making it, could tell what it was. So I’m calling that a success!

These towels are not hard to make. They cost around $10, maybe a little less, and take under an hour. Well under an hour if you are experienced at sewing.

Here’s What You Need for the Monkey Hooded Towel:

• 1 brown bath towel
• 1 brown hand towel (you’ll only use half)
• 1 light brown hand towel (you’ll only use half)
• Small amounts of white and black fabric
• Optional: iron on transfer for the eyes

Instructions to Sew the DIY Hooded Monkey Towel:

Monkey Towel Step 1: To start out, cut your brown hand towel in half hamburger way. Then fold it in about 4 inches and pin it like this:

Monkey Towel Step 2: Stitch a straight line across it on the edge of the towel where you pinned it (where my yellow pin is above, but go all the way across the towel.)

Monkey Towel Step 3:Now, flip it over and work on the back of your half-hand towel.

Monkey Bath Towel Step 4: Cut out eyes. I like to use fabric that has already been attached to iron on transfer.

You need 2 white pieces and 2 black pieces. My black ones are about the size of nickels. Really you can just eyeball this. Make them as big or small as you want them.

Monkey Towel Step 5: Iron your eyes in place (or you can skip this step and just sew them in place).

Monkey Bath Towel Step 6: Using a tight zig zag (applique) stitch, sew around your eyes and eyeballs:

Monkey Towel Step 7: Now, with your light brown towel you need to cut out the nose and the ears. You need 2 nose pieces and 4 ear pieces. Make them basically half circles but with a little extra length on them:

Monkey Towel Step 8: Sew around them leaving the straight edge open to turn them. Turn them right side out. Sew your nose in place with another tight zig-zag stitch:

Monkey Towel Step 9: Now, for the ears, figure out where you want them and then cut a small slit through the towel. Make it smaller than the width of the ears. Slide the ears down into place. Because the slit is smaller than them they will scrunch up a little. This is good.

On the underside of the towel, zig zag your ears in place:

Guess what? Your face is done!

Monkey Towel Step 10: Now, fold the hooded towel in half with the face on the inside. Zig zag up the raw edge of the towel to form your hood:

I’m going to show you this next part with my frog bowel towel just because the pictures explain it well. Do this with your monkey. Turn it so that it looks like this:

Monkey Towel Step 11: Then sew a straight line to form a triangle at the tip. Then snip off the very tip of the towel. This just gives your monkey less of a pointy head.

Monkey Towel Step 12: Now just attach your head to your towel. I like to make a nice little pleat in my towel:

Monkey Towel Step 13: Sew that pleat in place and then zig zag your head onto your towel like this:

That’s all it take – you have yourself a monkey hooded towel. As for my model, I think he likes it!

Is it just me or is he adorable?

Now, be sure to check out the Ladybug and the Frog as well!

Tutorial #3 | Dragon Hooded Towel

Hi guys, Genie from the Sew and Tell Project here today, and we’re going to learn how to make a hooded towel that looks like a dragon! I chose to make a dragon DIY hooded towel, but you could easily alter this to make many fun characters! I’ll walk you through the construction for my dragon, and give some tips on creating just a simple hooded towel and some other creatures.

You’re going to need a regular-sized bath towel, and a matching hand towel. You’ll also need some basic sewing supplies: a sewing machine capable of straight and zig-zag stitching, matching thread, scissors and/or a rotary cutter, and pins. A ruler or straight edge may come in handy, too. If you’re going to make a creature, you’ll need felt in appropriate colors or a hand towel (depending on what you’re making, a washcloth may suffice).

Dragon Hooded Towel Instructions

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 1: The first thing you’re going to do is cut your hand towel in half. You do not want to cut it the long way, you want to end up with two almost square pieces.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 2: Next, turn up the finished edge 3-4″, wrong sides together, and sew closed. You can change the width of the amount you fold under based on how deep you want the hood to be.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 3: Next, take the other half of the hand towel and cut out two half circle-ish pieces. These will be your creature’s nose. Sew them together around the curve, leaving the straight edge unsewn, and turn right side out.

If you want teeth for your creature, here’s where you’d add them: cut out white triangles (or whatever shaped teeth you want) and place them with the points facing in along the perimeter of the curve. Place the other piece on top of the teeth, with the right sides of the towel together. When you turn it right side out, the teeth will be pointing outward.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 4: Going back to your original half of the towel, flip it over so that the piece you sewed down is underneath, the folded edge is at the bottom, and the raw edge is at the top. Place the unsewn edge of the snout along your stitching line and pin in place.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 5: You can see a small piece of pink felt here on mine; this is my dragon’s tongue. You could add fire instead! Just sandwich it in between the snout and the hood and be sure to catch it in your seam (if you miss, just stitch it down). I recommend using a tight, wide zig zag stitch here (set your stitch length short and the stitch width long) because it will help catch in the raw edges and prevent unraveling.

And this is the tongue underneath!

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 6: Next, we’re going to cut out two white ovals from felt, and two smaller circles. The ovals will be the white of the eye, and the circles the pupils. Use a tight zig zag stitch to applique the eyes on. You can use double sided applique medium to hold them in place while you stitch, if desired.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 7:Next, cut out some large triangles from a coordinating felt color to make your dragon’s spiky mane. Cut a slit on the halfway point of the hood, from the raw edge to right between his eyes.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 8: Place the spike along the cut and then fold the hood shut, with the face on the inside, sandwiching the spike in between. Sew the opening closed from the wrong side with a tight zig-zag stitch. Maybe measure a little better than I did so the eyes end up evenly place around the center of the hood. 😉

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 9: This is what your hood should look like. You could add some embroidery to the snout area for nostrils, if you like. Also, if you’re prefer to use towelling or other fabric for the tongue, fire, spikes, or other features you’re adding, just be sure to cut two pieces, sew them right sides together, and turn right side out so you won’t have frayed edges.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 10: To finish the hood, fold the face in half and sew the raw edge you see on top of the above photo together, You can add a few spikes in that seam, too.

Before attaching my hood to the towel, I make a pleat in the towel. It feels like it helps the towel wrap around its wearer, and it gives it some volume. This is the underside of the towel, and it definitely helps to baste it in place. Flip your towel over, so the pleat is on top, and pin your hood’s unfinished edge to the edge of the towel, centering both right in the middle.

I forgot to take a photo of this step, but the face you just made will be the right side of the hood, and the side of the towel with the pleat will be the right side, and make sure those are together, then sew. Again, a tight zig zag is a good idea here.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 11: Next, I wanted to add a few more spikes on the towel part of my diy hooded towel, so I cut a long slit in the middle of my pleat, on the right side of the towel.

I laid my spikes out, overlapping some, and then folded the slit so that the right sides of the towel were together with the spikes sandwiched in between, and then sewed it shut with a tight zig zag.

Dragon Hooded Towel Step 12: Finally, I used the last bit of my hand towel to make little pockets for little hands to help hold the towel closed. I just cut triangles off the final end. I turned the unfinished edge under and stitched it down, and then lined up the two finished edges with the top, inside corners of the towel. Then sew them down.

If you want to make a simple diy hooded towel, omit the snout, eyes, tongue, and spikes, and just fold your half hand towel in half, stitch the raw edges together, pleat your main towel, and then center the hood along the main towel. Using this basic design, you could also create dinosaurs, monkeys, frogs, ducks…

You could cut horizontal slits above and a little to the sides of the eyes and insert ears for bunnies, puppies, or cats, too! There are lots of fun options. 🙂

I hope you enjoy making your own diy hooded towel, and please show us what you create. 🙂

Thank you for joining us today to learn how to sew a hooded towel – I hope you found that making a hooded towel isn’t too hard. If you liked this DIY hooded towel tutorial, check out some of the others at Peekaboo Pages: (1) Easy Breezy Swim Cover Tutorial; and, (2) DIY Baby Mobile.

Also, be sure to join our sewing community at the Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop Facebook Group.