"Summer Social" Guest Project -- The Surfer's Poncho {tutorial}

Woohoo!!!
I can't believe I'm here guesting for Jen on Tatertots & Jello!

My name is Kyla and I'm visiting you from Funky PolkaDot Giraffe!

I feel like the kid from the Willy Wonka movie
who yells - "Look at me! I'm on TV!"
That's seriously how awesome this is for me.
I adore Jen and hope to meet her in real ASAP!

I've lived all over the country.
Born in Las Vegas, jr. high and high school in Iowa,
a summer in Kentucky, college years in Utah and now I'm settled
in fabulous Orange County, California.
I'm married to my college sweetheart and we have two crazy munchkins.
I'm a second grade teacher, turned creative blogging enthusiast, and I tend to the
obsessive - just ask my husband :)
I have an Etsy shop, do day care full time, and love blogging on my crafty blog.

Today I'm sharing a fun summer project that
I've been wanting to make for a long time.

I found the towels over a year ago at a Black Friday sale
and I just knew they'd come in handy one day.

It's the Surfer's Poncho -
or a new spin on the classic and much loved, hooded towel.

We have swimming lessons starting in a week
and one thing that drives me crazy is
the dragging of the towels across the parking lot or
the crying 2 year old because she can't keep her towel
on and she's "freezing".
The insanity!!!!

So I was brainstorming with my husband about
the problem - he's a good sounding board -
and he said, "You should make a surfer's towel."
And I was like, huh?
He explained that surfers cut holes in the top
of a towel so they have a makeshift changing room on the beach.
The towels don't fall off - because they are poncho style.
So I changed the plans a little bit and this is what I came up with.

Surfer Poncho Tutorial:

What you'll need:

1 large towel

1 hand towel

thread

sewing machine

STEP ONE: Fold your hand towel in half.
You can use the decorative edge or a finished edge of the
towel to save you the time of having to "hem" the outside edge.
Lay your pattern down and pin.
I used a hood from a hooded towel we already had
to make my pattern.

STEP TWO:
Cut your hood pieces out, cutting a little extra for seam allowance
if you didn't already allow for that in the sizing.
I added extra, because the pattern was actually for my
daughter's towel and my son has a BIG-ger head :)

STEP THREE:
Sew around the outside edge where the arrows outline.
I sewed a 1/4" seam allowance with a zig zag stitch
and then went over the seam again with a straight stitch.

STEP FOUR:
Fold your towel in half lengthwise to form the poncho.
Then, find the center of the folded edge.
You could measure and be exact, but I folded it in half again
and marked with a pin.

STEP FIVE:
Use the neck hole of a shirt and make a pattern
piece for the neck opening.
You can also estimate and eye it if you're comfortable with that.

STEP SIX:
Open up your neck opening and pin down the front
half of the ellipse.
Then sew a 1/4" seam around the pinned edge -
again I did a zig zag and then a straight stitch.

STEP SEVEN:
Find the center of the back part of the ellipse and mark with a pin.
Then match the center of the hood to the center of the ellipse
and pin the hood to the poncho right sides together.

STEP EIGHT:
Sew the hood to the poncho with a 1/4" seam.
I did a zig zag and went back over with a straight stitch.
Woohoo! Now you have a Surfer Poncho!

STEP NINE:
Time to add the pocket.
I grabbed my son's sweatshirt and took a pattern from the pocket.

STEP TEN:
Cut a little extra for seam allowances, then fold the edges
under where the arrows are and sew down the raw edge
so you have a finished edge.

STEP ELEVEN:
Position in the pocket where you'd like it to lay.
Then, holding the top edge of the pocket in place,
flip the pocket up toward the hood,
so that with right sides are together now.
Sew with a 1/4" seam along the top seam -
that looks like the bottom seam of the pocket right now.