DIY Beach Towel Changing Cover Up

So, even though it's January, slap me silly, it's been quite warm here in Floriduh. Even has me thinking about shedding the wetsuit. Nah. The water's still too chilly for me. Yeah, I'm a wuss. Tell me to my face. I'll take you on.
Thankfully, for me, my drive home is usually pretty short, so I just usually drive home in my wetsuit. If I have to look forward to a rashy long drive, though, I'd better pack a way to get out of my suit without giving the folks on A1A a better show than the Lido Cabaret (for better or worse).
I've seen those nice expensive changing ponchos for the parking lot, but I had a nice large towel already that is 33" wide by 66" long- no holes in this old towel!- that would do nicely to make one.

My nice big beach non holey towel

So, I figured this would work to cover me pretty well lengthwise (I'm pretty short). If you're taller, whipstitch additional hand or beach towels to each end to make it longer (or sideways, to make it wider- we don't judge here).
I folded mine in half and pinned down each side fully. Don't be stingy with the pins- pin the entire length down each side together:

Pinning each side in place

Use a Large t-shirt as a guide and lay it in the middle of the folded towel, with the collar close to the folded edge and the sleeves out towards the pinned edges. Notice where the line of the armpit of the t-shirt falls in relation to the pinned edge? Come down about 1 inch under the armpit if you're a woman, 2 inches if you're a man, from that point and place a pin ON THE OUTER SEAM OF THE TOWEL where you pinned down the side originally. You will be sewing only between this point and the bottom, leaving an opening for your arm to fit through, but go ahead and leave the other pins in place down the side to keep the seam stable as you sew, even though you won't be stitiching the upper part.

Don't forget to cut a neckline as well- I do this by taking that same shirt as a guide by holding it up to the middle of the fold, and measuring. I noticed that this one could use about 3 inches on each side since I've got a bulbous head like George Costanza, so I gave myself 12 inches across right in the middle(!).Honestly, just keep in mind that the towel won't stretch like your favorite t-shirt will, so make sure to give yourself a generous slit, but don't let it fall off your shoulder:

Since I gave myself a football sized head, I didn't think I had much depth (haha), so I'm pretty shallow, at only an inch.....

I needed to sew the raw edge of the collar, so I just overlocked the edge using a basic overlock stitch on my machine:

 

That didn't create a very nice finished look for the collar, so I finished it using some extra wide double fold bias tape stitched over the raw edge, kind of like a quilt edge:

 Much Better!



 

Here it is over a full suit, ready to go:

 

I guess a hood would be easy enough to add like I've seen on some of the coverups, but if it's cold enough that I'd need a hood to change out of my wetsuit, that also means a football or basketball game is on somewhere and I'm missing it in some warm place.

Bring on Summer.