Quick & Easy Bandanna poncho

I have 7 grand daughters... and I like to make gifts for them. Birthdays are fairly easy, they come one at a time (except November 29 & 30!). Christmas presents all come due on the same day! So here is an idea for a quick and easy girly gift.

Buy 4 matching bandannas; this brand works well.

Some bandannas have printed words instead of labels.

I do not like the words, but I do like the overall design.
I'll set these aside for later, then work out a way to deal with the lettering.

What ever brand you choose, I suggest washing and drying your bandannas before construction begins.

Snip out the labels as close as possible to the hem.

These bandannas are not square.
The cross wise grain edge is a different length than the length wise grain, and is a little stretchy.

This difference in size is the reason I made sure to sew cross grain edges to cross grain and length wise to length wise.

Sew the bandannas together to form a large square leaving some of the center open.
This is 3 inches... not enough to make a head size opening.

Here are all 4 bandannas sewn with the 3 inch opening... had to open it up to 4 inches.

A reasonable opening, seams pressed flat, and the neck opening creased.

I could just sew these points down and be done, but.....

While photographing the green version I noticed the shadow effect.
And I don't like the look of that point.

The points were serged off after the neck was top stitched.

If you do not have a serger, you could just cut them off with pinking shears.

I serged these before top stitching the neck edge.

Finished neck.

Finished green poncho.

Now what about those bandannas with lettering?

My first thought was to sew the seams beside the letters...
sorry the red thread is hard to see.

The resulting huge seam allowances were problematic!

Marked the corners in preparation for serging; measure from the printed pattern NOT the hem.
Cheap bandannas have very uneven hems!

One bandanna trimmed, serge the other 3 and proceed as with the pink/green set.

At this point I realized that the "Quick & Easy" quotient just went down by a factor of 16! 

And I have 5 sets of this brand of bandanna.

4 edges x 4 bandannas x 5 colors = 1 busy Grandma!

I did seriously consider returning some bandannas in favor of the other brand, but.....

the colors available.....

and the print.....

I think I will keep them after all and just GET BUSY!