Baby Sewing Projects: Hooded Towel

I've posted a few times about the hooded towels that I've made following the patterns from Crazy Little Projects.  Over the past few years I've made the Minion, the Owl, Elmo, Batman, Minnie Mouse, and a Ninja Turtle.  So I figured I would make a towel for Cooper.  I looked through my stash of towels and I already had a blue bath towel and half a red hand towel leftover from Piper's Elmo towel, so I decided to use those since those are the main colors of his nursery.  I didn't see any of the animals I wanted to make, so I decided to try putting his name on the hood instead and I love how it turned out!

This is the main tutorial for making a hooded towel from her website.  I started with the red hood and sewed the first seam and then added the letters.

Here were my starting supplies for cutting the letters.  I used 6 different scraps of fabric that I had leftover from other projects that I've been working on.  I sprayed them with starch and pressed them.  Then I ironed on the Wonder Under.  Several tutorials for appliqueing that I found recommended peeling the paper backing off of the fabric after ironing it together and before cutting the letters out, but I found it way easier to leave the paper backing on for cutting purposes.  I cut the letters out with my Silhouette.  Then I had to apply a little head on the back again to get the paper backing off cleanly before ironing the letters onto the towel.

 The letters positioned and ironed on--ready for stitching

 I used one of the small zig zag stitches and navy thread to sew around each of the letters to make sure they stay on well through lots of washes!

 Then it was time to complete the hood.  I sewed up the back of the hood to put it together.  One of the tutorials on Crazy Little Projects' website mentions sewing a straight line toward the top and cutting a little of the excess towel off so that the hood is more rounded instead of a straight point, so I usually follow that advice on my towels.  In the picture above, there is a green pin placed when I sew straight across before cutting that little tip off. (You can see in the picture below how the finished hood is straight across the top instead of pointed)

I sewed the pleats on the blue bath towel and then sewed the hood onto the towel and I was done!  

And another angle, hanging from his door.  I am very happy with how it turned out and look forward to using it at many bathtimes to come!  It took about an afternoon to complete since I had to applique all of the letters on, but overall it was a pretty simple project.  I'm grateful that I found that original hooded towel tutorial--I have definitely gotten a lot of use out of it!