Making your own beach towel poncho from two towels

I’m excited to share with you something I made with my mum a few months ago – the beach towel poncho!

Pictured above is my mum showcasing our efforts on the beach!

If you fancy making a similar poncho, you will need two towels measuring 100cm by 150cm and a small amount of bias binding.

Rough Guide on making the beach towel poncho

Cutting your towels

First, you will need to cut your towels as shown in the diagram so that you end up with two pieces measuring 100cm by 45cm each, and two pieces measuring 100cm by 105cm each.

The larger pieces will become the main poncho front and back, and the smaller pieces will be used to make the hood and pocket.

mark the front neck opening

Tack the shoulder and side seams and try it on. Make a mark how far you want the front neck opening slit to be. We marked where the collar bone was. Cut a line to this point.

Create your hood pattern piece. Cut out two pieces and stitch them together.

It’s a good idea to find a simple hood you can adapt from your own wardrobe for this. You can watch how we did it in the video I made below.

Ideally, you want a simple hood which is only two pieces. We cut our pieces on the towel selvedge so that we didn’t need to neaten the raw edge of the hood edge.

Stitch the two pieces together down the centre back seam (the long curved edge).

Mark the neck opening and then stitch the shoulder seams.

Now you have your hood, you can mark the neck opening and find out where you will need to sew the shoulder seams.

Fold the hood so that the front lower corners meet in the middle. Line this mid point with the neck opening slit on the front piece. The outer edges of the hood piece will provide an idea of where you will need to sew your shoulder seams up to.

Stitch the shoulder seams

Sew your hood onto the neck opening

Pin, tack and then sew on the hood to the neck opening, right sides together, and then neaten edges (if not using an overlocker).

Create a kangaroo pouch pocket

In order to make the pocket, we did another test fit and took measurements on how big we wanted the pocket to be. We then drew it out onto paper.

Fold and tack the seam allowance of the pocket

Depending on the seam allowance you allowed in your pocket pattern piece (we did 1.5cm for this part), you will need to fold it down so that it is on the wrong side. Pin and then tack in place.

Sew the pocket opening edges

Stitch the seam allowance on the diagonal sections (where your hands will enter the pocket) in place.

Pin, tack and sew the pocket onto the front of the poncho

Pin, tack and sew the pocket onto the front of the poncho. I would recommend trying the poncho on to check that the pocket is positioned in the best place for you.

Stitch the side seams

Try the poncho on to determine how big you want the armholes to be. Mark with a pin.

We added a side slit at the bottom side edges. Place a pin where you would like this side slit to begin.

Stitch the side seams close to the edges of the towel, wrong sides together.

Attach bias binding to the raw edges at the neck opening

To conceal the remaining raw edges on the neck opening slit, use your piece of bias binding. If you did not cut your hood pieces on a towel edge, you will need to apply bias binding to the whole of the hood edge as well.