Toddler Poncho How-To DIY
Updated: Jun 2, 2022
Today, I share my How-To’s for creating a simple poncho – AND it gives me the chance to show off my sweet, gorgeous granddaughter! Her mom requested a poncho for ease in keeping her warm in the car seat without the bulk of a heavy jacket. Off to Jo-Ann’s I went, and looked at the top quality fleece. I found this nice and heavy one in lovely shades of purple and aqua.
Twirling Fun
It seems the best features of her Poncho are:
It TWIRLS! She’s definitely all girl as she seems to instinctively know when something will ‘twirl’.
The soft PomPom trim around the circumference. I must admit, I was tempted to put the trim on the edge of the hood as well. While that would have been cute, her Mama and I agreed that was a big risky and too tempting to chew on and possibly choke, so I resisted.
Yardage Requirements
Given her wrist to wrist armspan of just 27″, I knew that I could easily get a poncho out of just 3/4 yard, but I purchased a full 1 yard piece instead. With the 60″” width of this fleece (as most are), I ALSO was able to quickly cut a pair of 1 seam pants from a pair of her pants while we were there at Thanksgiving, and stitched them up as well.
Draft the Circle Poncho
The ‘Poncho’ is really a ‘donut’. The circumference of the outermost circle is the same as the armspan of the person, wrist to wrist. For my Kenzie, that was 27″. I added 1″ for a 1/2″ ‘hem’ all around so that gave me 28″. The radius of the circle then is half that, or 14″. You can see my creating that circle from a large piece of pattern tissue in the first photo below.