Toddler Bathrobe Tutorial

With a few hours and some basic materials, you can make one too!

We have a beautiful, modern apartment in Dubai, and we are fortunate that my company covers the cost of living in this apartment.  What we didn't consider when we were apartment hunting (because we were so in awe of the sweeping views of the Marina!) was that the apartment has no bathtubs.  Not exactly kid-friendly.

But no matter, now that Baby L has outgrown her baby bathtub, we are teaching her to shower, and walk from the shower to her bedroom to get ready for bedtime.  We were originally using regular hooded towels from Ikea, but she hasn't figured out how to keep the towel wrapped around herself...so I decided to make Baby L some bathrobes!

A monkey towel for our little monkey - but since she can't hold it around herself, it flaps in the wind and then she either rips it off her head or she trips over it.

I scoured the internet for free toddler bathroom tutorials, and found a number of cute patterns - but you know what? I hate sewing with patterns.  That's why I like quilting projects and baby projects - the thought of printing 10-14 pages, taping them together, cutting them out, tracing them or pinning them to the terry cloth, cutting out more pieces....no thank you.  This working, pregnant mommy doesn't have time (or energy) for that! I have both of Tanya Whelan's books with beautiful pictures and pattern templates, and they are collecting

I finally found this tutorial, which is a re-post of a 1950's tutorial for how to make a child's bathroom from a terry cloth towel and grosgrain ribbon - and there is minimal hemming because you utilize the bound edges of the towel.  Perfect! Except this tutorial doesn't have a hood on the bathrobe, and I'm pretty sure you can't buy towels the size that it recommends for toddlers anymore since nowadays towels (and people) are bigger than they were in the 1950's...so after mulling over it for awhile, I decided to use this as a baseline to create my own quick and easy hooded bathroom pattern.  

I had some pieces of terry cloth that I recently purchased from another expat in Dubai, and because I'm a glutton for punishment, I converted an entire yard of fabric into 1/2" double-fold bias tape (yes, yards and yards and yards of bias tape!)  There are tons of tutorials online, this one is pretty good.

Materials Required:

• 3/4 to 1 yard of terry cloth (depending on the size of your kiddo) - I was able to comfortably fit 2 robes from 1 yard of 60" wide terry, but the dimensions won't work out to get 1 robe out of 1/2 yard of 60" unless you add a seam on top along the shoulders (or you have a very skinny child).
• 6 yards of extra wide (1/2" finished) single-fold bias tape - store bought or homemade
• Coordinating thread

Tools Required:

• Fabric marker 
• Long-sleeved shirt that currently fits your kiddo - hood optional, but helpful
• Rotary cutter & mat OR scissors
• Ruler or straight edge

Material cuts:

Did I mention that I hate paper patterns?  So this is a create-your-own pattern sort of tutorial. You could take all these measurements without putting the shirt directly on the fabric, but this is a whole lot faster for me.

Start by squaring up your material.  Decide how long you want your robe to be - the top fold will become the shoulders of the robe, so the length from the fold to the edge will be the length that the robe falls from the shoulders.  For my 1-yard cut of 60" fabric, this ended up being 18" after I squared off the edges.

Sometimes yardage is a little wonky - and sometimes is VERY wonky!!

Once your material is square. keep it folded in half, and pull out the shirt or in my case, my daughter's hoodie. I used her hoodie as a template to determine how wide to make the bathrobe.  From the centerline of the hoodie to the edge of the terry was 11".  I measured 11" from the centerline of the hoodie to the other side.

Place the shirt or hoodie on the fabric, shoulders near the fold

11" from centerline to the edge

Mark 11" from the centerline on the other side.

Next, decide how wide you want the sleeves to be.  The fold of the fabric will fall on the shoulders and the seam will be on the bottom of the sleeve.  Draw a line for the bottom of the sleeve towards the shirt, and then draw a line from the arm pit to the bottom of the robe, and repeat on the inside of the robe - basically, you're making a big "T-shape" with the fold at the top.

I followed the natural diagonal from the top of the shoulder of the shirt to where the sleeve fell, so in my case, the sleeves will be ~7" wide (less seam allowance).  That should be nice and roomy for a bathrobe.

Once you have the outline of your robe drawn on the terry, mark the centerline of the robe.  This will become the front opening.

Draw the centerline on the front of the robe

Next, we'll measure for the opening for the head.  You don't want to make this too wide or the robe will slip off your little one's shoulders, but you also don't want to make it too tight, for obvious reasons.  I measured the width of the hood (7") and added a extra half inch on each side.

If you're not using a hoodie, you can measure the head opening of your little one's shirt, and add a little bit extra on each side so that the robe is comfy.

Mark along the top fold the width of the head opening.  Since I decided to go with 8", I marked a dot 4" on either side of the centerline.

Next, we'll measure the hood.  Measure the height of the hood on the sweatshirt (in this case 10") and the depth of the hood (7").  Double the depth, and that is the size rectangle you need for the hood (so in my case, 10"x14").  If you're not using a hoodie, simply use double width of the opening you cut for the shoulders (so in this case, 16") and then you can measure the height of your kiddo from the nape of their neck to the crown of their head.  Again, I'm all about fast and easy, so unless your child has an enormous head, you can probably just use 12" and call it a day.

Height of the hood - 10"

Depth of the hood at its widest spot - 7"

That's it for measuring, I promise!  Now you're ready to cut.  Cut out the T-shape of the robe, being careful to cut through both layers. I prefer a rotary cutter for this part since even with my sharpest of shears, I can only go through one layer of terry at a time.

Once you've cut out your T-shape, cut the line you drew up the middle of the front, and cut across the fold between your 2 dots.  Also cut out the rectangle for your hood.  I've laid out the 2 pieces below so you can start to see how this quick little robe comes together.

Easy peasy, no paper pattern required!

Last is cutting the bias tape.  Cut (1) 5" piece for the loop at the top of the hood, and (4) 13" pieces for the "belt" of the robe (basically really wide ties).  If you have an older child, you could make a real belt with loops, but since this is meant to be fast and easy, we're going to attach the ties to the robe itself.  If you're a little short on binding, you can make the ties out of terry cloth, but they'll be a bit bulky.

(1)  5" piece and (4) 13" pieces of bias binding

And that's it for cutting! Before we start sewing, I will warn you to double check that you are sewing the right thing before making any stitches.  Terry cloth is beautiful in that if your thread matches, all your stitches will be hidden in the terry loops - so it is super forgiving if you have a crooked seam!  Terry cloth is horrible in that if you screw up and need to rip out a seam, all your stitches are hidden in the terry loops!  It is a pain in the you-know-what to fix a wrong seam, and often times you end up ripping out some of the terry loops in the process.  So be careful!

At your sewing machine,  we'll start with sewing the "accessories" or the pieces of binding. Take a 5" piece of single fold bias tape, fold it in half the long way, and sew it closed along the long edge to make a loop for hanging the robe.

For the faux belt, take (2) 13" pieces of binding and open them up.  Pin them RIGHT SIDES together.  Cut a diagonal off on one end, and then sew the 2 pieces along or outside the folds and across the diagonal end - leave the square end OPEN.

Sew in the fold, or a little bit closer to the edge of the bias tape.  When sewing across the diagonal, use between 1/4" and 1/2" allowance - I didn't measure, I just eyeballed it.

Trim the tip off the diagonal corner to reduce the bulk, then use a chopstick or bodkin to flip right side out.  Top stitch around the edge to prevent warping or twisting of the fabric in the wash. Repeat with the other (2) 13" pieces of binding.

Trim corner to reduce the bulk

Top stitch around the edges of the faux belt.

Next, we'll form the hood.  Find the center of your rectangle of terry, fold the 5" bias tape loop in half, and pin the raw edges of the binding in the middle of the rectangle.  If your terry has a "right" and "wrong" side (mine doesn't), pin the loop to the RIGHT side of the fabric.  Sew this seam RIGHT SIDES together.  Since this is a knit, it won't fray, and it's not stretchy, so you can either use your machine's basic straight stitch or zig-zag, totally up to you!  I like to zig-zag because I think it gives the seam a little strength against my terror of a toddler.

The loop made from my binding, just to one side of center on the "right side" of the hood.

Fold in half right sides together, and sew the top seam.

Flip the hood right side out so the loop is on top

Next, to form the body of the robe, take the 2 pieces of "faux belt" and pin them on either side of the "right side" of the robe with the raw edges flush to the vertical part of the "T", just under the armpits.

Do this on both sides of the robe

With right-sides together, sew along the sides and under the sleeves of the T-shape.  Once you've done that, flip the body of the robe right-side out.  You'll notice in the pictures for the few steps after this one that there are no faux belt ties...this is because for the first robe I made, the decision to attach the belt was last-minute, so I ended up hand-stitching the ties onto the robe.  Machine stitching into the seam is much easier!!

Attaching the hood to the robe is probably the trickiest thing in this whole process, and the part that I had to think about for awhile before actually doing it since the original 1950's tutorial doesn't include a hood. It's not even that tricky, you just have to sew carefully around the shoulders.

Along the bottom back of the hood, find the center and mark or pin.  Along the top of the back of the robe, also find the center and mark or pin.  Line these two up, and place a few pins along the back of the robe.  The hood should overhang the opening you cut on both sides - open the robe, and keep pinning on either side.  The hood will either be flush to the front opening of the robe, or a little bit short.  Either way is ok.  Carefully sew this seam - there will be some bulk in the fabric of the body of the robe as you transition over the shoulder fold, be careful not to let any of the extra bulk get caught up in the seam (because as I noted, it's a pain to rip seams out!). 

Pin the hood to the robe, right-sides together, starting from the center of the hood lined up with the center of the back of the robe, and work your way towards the front of the robe.

Congratulations, you've done the hardest part!  This is also a good time to have your child "try on" the robe to see if you need to make any adjustments.

Ta-da! The robe is now fully assembled!

Another view of the robe with the front closed.  As you can see, my hood wasn't QUITE centered, as I have more overhang on the left front that on the right front - it won't matter much because you trim all that away in the next step.

On to finishing our little robe with binding.  If your hood is flush to the front opening of the robe, great!  If not, you can trim the excess at an angle until you have a single smooth edge to work with.  I also trim the bottom of the front opening so it had rounded edges.  This way, I can avoid having to make a corner with my binding, and simply sew around a curve. 

You can kind of see the angled cuts I made just underneath the hood, and I rounded the bottom corners of the front.  I also trimmed across the seams of the sleeves since they were off by a 1/4".

Sew the binding around both sleeves, and all the way around the raw edges of the robe.  I start by attaching the binding to the INSIDE of the robe, and then I wrap the binding around and do the final stitching on the OUTSIDE of my robe.  This is primarily because I'm a little impatient with sewing my bindings, so I don't always "catch" the attached side in my final stitching.  If none of what I just wrote makes sense to you, reference a great Sew4Home tutorial on how to attach bias binding around a curve.  The tutorial actually covers everything binding related, so scroll down to almost the bottom for actually attaching the binding.  There is also the option to use double-fold binding with a zig-zag stitch like this bib, but since it involves a lot of pinning, it's actually faster for me to just take 2 spins around on my sewing machine.  That's it!  Once you've bound all the edges, I recommend a quick wash & dry cycle to remove all the extra little fuzzies and lint that came free while cutting.  Otherwise, you're good to go!

Finished toddler robe with faux belt!