Hooded Towel: Part 2 Attaching the Hood

 

 

Now that the hood is done, grab some pins and get ready to attach the hood to the main towel.

 

Fold the main towel in half and mark the middle with a pin so you can line the middle of the hood up with the middle of the main towel.  I like to try and remember to keep the tag down in a bottom corner when picking what side to sew the hood onto.  I also try to keep the "back" side of the towel so that it is the inside side of the hooded towel when you're all done, or the side that is touching the body when wrapped around your little cutie.  I hope that makes sense as I don't know how to explain it really.

 

First match up the middle of the hood with the middle of the towel and then start pinning each side out from there.  It gets pretty bulky in some places and I've found putting the pins in horizontal to the towel top/hood bottom works best for me.  I like to pin the hood on the "inside" of the hooded towel, but you can certainly pin it on the outside if you prefer.  I think pinning it on the inside hides the bulky decorative edges areas better.

 

 

After you are all done pinning, head back to your sewing machine.

 

 

On the inside of the hood, sew a straight stitch down the middle of the towels edges, lining the hood edge up with the towel edge as best you can.  It's bulky in a few places, especially at the middle hood seam, so gently help pull it along.  This is where stitching the front edges of the hood where the decorative edge is folded up earlier really helps.  You won't have to worry as much about lining up three layers of towel edges.  Until I started doing this a few years ago, I would often have one of the three layers slip out and have to unpick and restitch that area.

 

Then go back and sew a zig zag stitch on top of the straight stitch you just sewed.  This helps catch any edges you may have missed with the straight stitch and helps tack all the edges on both sides down better.  I set my sewing machine with the stitch width around 4 and stitch length about 2.  Select a stitch width that fits best the width of your towel edges though.  Some towel edges are wider, some narrower.  It's okay if your zig zag stitch goes off the edge onto the fluffy part of the towel a little bit.  After the towel is washed and dried, it fluffs up and you can't really tell where the stitching is.

 

 

Next, turn the towel over to the outside and stitch another zig zag stitch right over your previous zig zag stitch.  This just helps make sure everything is tacked down and is nice and secure on each side.  Don't worry if everything doesn't line up perfectly, you want it as close as possible, but after washing and drying the towel, it fluffs up and hides the stitching a bit.  The more tacked down the edges are the better it looks over time.  So if you feel like it may need another set of zig zag stitches, go for it.

 

All done!

If you aren't doing this as a last minute gift, wash & dry it and it looks even better.  After you get the hang of it, it only takes about 15 minutes to make one of these.  You could make several in an hour for your whole family, or to have on hand as ready to go baby gifts.

 

This is how I fold a hooded towel up, it ends up fitting nicely on the shelf with all the other towels.

 

Hopefully your hood stayed fairly centered, you'll be able to tell when you fold it like this.  You can check by folding it like this before doing the two sets of zig zag stitches in the steps above if you're picky like me.

 

 

Hope this how-to made sense.  If you have any questions please leave a comment or email me.

 

I figure not many people ever look at this blog, so I didn't put a logo or watermark or anything on the photos, but please be courteous, if you do use anything from this how-to, please give credit to crafty endeavors.  Thanks!