4 Wheelers & A Dog: Terry Lounge Chair Cover Tutorial

In honor of SUMMER!!!! I'm re-posting my Beach Towel Chair Cover Tutorial that I originally posted on my MomMomWheel blog that I never kept up with. Enjoy!

My sister was up visiting and with her upcoming wedding, she was browsing the web searching for ideas for Bridesmaids gifts. I suggested she check out the Swoozies website. They have very cute, personalized gifts. She stumbled upon the Terry Lounge Chair Cover, and then admitted how much she actually wanted one. I took one look and thought how easy it would be to make these. They sell them all over the web from $30 to $50 and that is unpersonalized. Here's how I made my own, personalized one, for around $7 bucks.

What you'll need: 2 beach towels, scissors, and a sewing machine. (embroidery is optional) Terry cloth is very thick so make sure you have good scissors. I hit up Target while they were having beach towels on sale for $3 each. Check out end of the season sales to get great deals on towels, and then you can have them ready for gifts around Christmas in peak Resort season time!

Step 1: If you want any kind of applique or embroidery on the front towel, do that first. (This is the towel that you aren't cutting up)

Monogram before you sew

Cut trying to save hemmed edges, and you'll save time

Step 2: Using your spare towel, measure and cut around 13" (keeping width the same...most towels are 30"). This will be the part that holds the towel onto the chair. I tried to use the hemmed sides as much as possible...because it's just less sewing you have to do.

Step 3: Do any embroidering you'd like on the extra fabric (back of chair). Pin this piece to the top of the main towel (right sides together), and sew. If you kept the hemmed side on your spare towel you're done. If you need to hem, do that before you sew it to the main towel. Turn right side out and you're done with the top part.

Pin right sides together to sew pocket at top that holds the towel to the chair

My pockets were 9" in length

Step 4: Measure how big you'd like your pockets. I used the design on the the towel to dictate how big they were. Think about what you'll use them for: sunblock, keys, magazines, etc. Measure out to identical pieces, keeping the width (30"). Mine were about 10". You'll want to measure how much your chair sits off the ground. Mine was about 10" from the floor to the chair, so I made my pockets 9" in length. So I folder my pockets up, right sides together, 9" and sewed around edges. Flip right side out. Voila! A pocket!

Step 5: Hem up the sides of the towel that are now hanging strangely because you made the pocket. Fold the top of the pocket down, back to back and sew all the way around. I left 2 inches between the top of the pocket this top part.

Hem sides of the top part of the pocket

Step 6: Fold top of pocket down and sew down. I used presser foot width. Now your pocket has a flap! There are many ways to make a pocket for this chair. I did it this way to minimize cutting and hemming.

Step 7: Make the other pocket using Steps 4 through 6.

Step 8: Sew the pockets onto the main towel. I measured the width of the chair, length of chair to floor, but my pockets were longer than 9" based on my little design there so when I sewed them on, they touched the floor the little. :-( You also need to make sure that they are measured lengthwise on the chair. I put my pockets between 28" and 48" from the top of the chair. My advice, don't even bother with measuring. Just go pin them on while your towel is on the chair. Then they'll be perfect. Use the line you sewed in Step 6 as a guideline to sew the pocket on the towel.

Sew the pockets to the main towel

Fabric I had left after my pockets

Step 9 (optional): You'll have about 1/3 of your spare towel left at this point. It's fine to stop here, but if you'd like to extend your towel, so your feet can rest on a towel, use your extra fabric to extend it on out. I put my almost finished towel on my chair, and measured how much more fabric I needed to cover the chair. Cut your spare towel based on those measurements, pin right sides together at bottom of main towel, and sew. I took my hemmed edge from the main towel and layed it over the unhemmed edge of the extra towel, and sewed it down, so the towel will lay flay when on the chair. You're done!