How to Make a Hooded Towel for Kids (15 Min EASY Project)

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These super easy DIY hooded towels are my favorite to use for my kids’ bath time. Each one can be made in 15 minutes for about $10, and each child has their own comfy, absorbent hanging bath towel in their own special colors. These also make great gifts for kids, toddlers, or babies!

We’ve had store bought hooded towels given to us that were similar to this design, but they never work as well as a handmade hooded towel. I made these designs with bath towels and hand towels from Amazon and Walmart (I needed multiple colors to make different ones for each of my own kids). When I actually timed myself, I couldn’t believe how fast these whipped up! I’ll link the projects I used below and show you how I made this design super easy—plus how to avoid a couple mistake that I made on the first time around.

This easy design is the perfect project for a baby shower gift or for your own kids. Or, choose bright colors and put these together for summer beach towels!

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Are DIY Hooded Towels Difficult to Make?

If you can do basic sewing, you can totally make these towels. You’ll need to know how to sew in a straight line, make a straight stitch, and (optionally) make a zig zag stitch.

There’s not even any ironing required! The hardest part of this project is to avoid breaking your needle when sewing through the thick layers of towel fabric. To avoid this, you can try to find towels that aren’t too thick. I liked these cotton bath towels from Amazon. They were not too heavy but still very absorbent. The other trick is just to sew your seams far enough away from the edge of the towel that you miss the extra-thick hem.

This easy sewing project is a great one for beginners, especially if you’re looking for more ideas for handmade gifts!

What Ages Are Hooded Towels Good For?

Hooded towels are perfect for infants through older children (even adults can use them!). For babies, they are ideal for providing a warm cocoon after a bath, and they’re large enough that even teenagers and adults can use them, too. Children especially love the coziness and usability that these towels provide after baths or swimming.

Personally, I ditched all of my infant towels in favor of these—they’re warmer and easier to use!

Materials You’ll Need

Here’s what you’ll need to make your hooded towel design:

A large bath towel. (Or whatever size you like.) I used these 28″x55″ cotton towels from Amazon. I love that they come in all different colors, and they’re not too thick which makes it easier to sew through. I also used some of Walmart’s 27″x52″ bath towels. These basic towels are super affordable (less than $3) and honestly pretty decent quality, but don’t come in as many colors.
A hand towel. I used these Amazon hand towels which worked great. Walmart also has some nice hand towels for less than $2.
Matching thread.
Pins.
Scissors. I LOVE my Ginghers.
A sewing machine.

How to Make A Hooded Bath Towel for Kids

I made this hooded towel pattern as easy as possible so anyone can do it! Thankfully it’s only a few steps and quite forgiving.

A word of warning: Towel fabric can be very thick and depending on the brand you get, you may be working with thick hems on your towel edges. Be careful when sewing through multiple layers. I broke two needles making this project! To remedy this, you may have to sew a wider seam allowance, particularly in step #1. I also found the Amazon towels to be a bit thinner and easier to work with than the Walmart ones.

1. Line up the middle of the bath towel with the middle of the hood towel and sew.

The first step is to attach your bath towel to the hand towel (hood piece).

The easiest way to find the center of the bath towel is simply to fold the long side in half, then stick a pin in the middle.

Do the same with the hand towel to find the center of the hood piece.

Next, with right sides together, line up the top of the bath towel with the long edge of the hand towel, matching the middles. Pin these pieces together. If there’s a tag on the hand towel, put it on the far end, which will get cut off in the next step.

right sides together on towels — This was before pinning the pieces together. It’s a good idea to add more pins to hold your edges together while you sew!

Sew these pieces together. I used a 3/4″ seam allowance to avoid sewing through the thicker hem on the edge of the towels.

2. Cut the excess off your hood.

Most hand towels are going to be too long for the hood portion. To remedy this, cut your hood piece to 14″ from the sewn edge of the towel.

measuring 14" from the edge of the hand towel

The right way to do this is with a rotary cutter. But, I went with the easy way and simply eyeballed a cut across with scissors on a flat surface.

view after cutting the excess of the hand towel

3. Close the top of your hood.

Once the extra is cut off, fold your hood so that right sides are together.

Line up the top cut edges and pin them together.

top cut edges of hand towel pinned together

The next step is to sew along this top edge (you can use a 5/8″ or 3/4″ seam allowance).

To help prevent fraying, I also completed a quick zig-zag stitch right on the very top of the raw edges.

Turn your hood right side out, and you’re done!!

little boy wearing homemade hooded towel

If you want to personalize it a little more, you can add a piece of ribbon or some rick rack along the edge of your hood. If you’re giving your hooded towel as a gift, it can be fun to grab another matching hand towel or wash cloth to wrap up with it.

Recently, we also made this wall mounted DIY towel rack because we needed something sturdier than wall anchors for a bathroom full of kids. It’s been perfect!