Penguins!!!!

Lately we've been obsessed with penguins around here. See, the Vancouver Aquarium just got South African penguins. Matteo heard the ads on the radio for the new exhibit and decided death by pestering was his best plan of attack... on a loop every twenty minutes for about a week I heard "Mum... did you know they have penguins at the aquarium now? I love penguins. I love the aquarium. We should go.... maybe tomorrow?". You have to admire his persistence. He did not give up. It wasn't really a hard sells though, we had been wanting to go to the aquarium for a while, and did decide a pre-summer day trip was in order. What fun it was!

When Elio was born my mum bought him the cutest hooded towel. Adorable little thing with a penguin hood. He looked like the pope in it. We began calling him the Penguin Pontiff. The thing I loved most about this towel was that it was not one of those cheesy cheap baby towels that absorb nothing and are so thin they are see-through. Somehow, and you know how it goes, this towel got shoved to the back of the cupboard and forgotten about. While cleaning the bathroom the other day and rearranging cupboard contents Penguini the Towel re-emerged. And you know what- it was still a lot of fun! Elio LOVES the thing and Matteo almost bubbles over with jealousy for want of the thing.

In true typical fashion, I looked at the thing and thought, I've got to be able to make that. Enter Pinterest. Do you all know Pinterest? The online clipboard and content sharing website. I wore down and joined, and I love it!! So many ideas and bits of inspiration in any category. It's great that I have a new obsession, because I was most certainly deficient in ways to waste my time (note the sarcasm... it's bad when your kids start to pretend they are you... what are you doing Elio "checking my Facebook". Maybe I should give it up for Lent next year). Anyways, through Pinterest I found a tutorial on how to make hooded towels for big kids. It is an excellent tutorial and it is SO EASY. You must check it out as this would make an awesome gift for any kid.
http://www.lubirdbaby.com/2011/08/hooded-towel-tutorial.html

Her directions were super clear and it didn't take much to add the few details to turn this already cute towel into a penguin.






 First, Elio loves being able to put his hands into the corner pockets of the towel so it is like he's wearing wings. This was easily achieved by cutting a face cloth in half diagonally. I finished the raw edge with bias tape, and sewed the already-finished edges into the corners of the wrong side of the bath towel. This made nice deep pockets, perfect for little hands.







Next I needed a face. I cut the face shape out of a white face cloth. I was able to get two faces out of one face cloth. I tried my best to make use of the finished edges. I left the professional finished edges as the bottom of the face, then used white bias tape to finish the curve. Why, when you are appliqueing the face on anyway, would you bother to finish the raw edges? Well, simply put, terry cloth is super duper messy, and it frays a lot. I was not convinced that simply appliqueing around the edge would be enough to prevent fraying and mess in the laundry.

Next I cut out a beak and feet from orange face cloths. I cut two of each shape, sewed them together, then turned them right side out. I attempted when possible to leave the professionally finished edge at the opening, and zigzagged to close them. (By the way, as I don't have a serger (Santa baby, just slip a serger under the tree... for me... been an awful good girl... Santa baby), I used zigzag on my seam allowances for any raw edges. Mostly inside the hood). I sewed the beak onto the face, and the feet onto the right side of the towel. I used a total of 3 orange face cloths for the beaks and feet for two penguin towels.

Next step was to use Wonder Under (how much do I love that stuff?!) fusible webbing to fuse the face to the hood with my iron. I then appliqued around it to ensure it was securely attached all the way around. I suppose you could use any cotton fabric for the bird bits, but I like the lush look of the whole thing being terry towel, plus, when you are smart in cutting, you can take advantage of finished edges, cutting down on the work. I am, if nothing else, completely lazy when it comes right down to it.



Once all of these add-ons were completed, I followed the tutorial directions for attaching the hood and was pretty much finished. One note about that, Matteo is very tall for his 5 years (anyone who knows me will be mystified by that no doubt. I lied on my driver's license. It says 5'1. I'm really 5 ft and one very important half inch.), and I found that the hood was still quite long at 12 inches long... you might want to adjust the length to make sure that the bath towel still hits at shoulder level.

All that was left were eyes. I used fabric paint to paint on the eyes, and that works fine. Embroidered eyes would look far better, but like I said before, as a dog's hind end.... I'm lazy.


This was a very gratifying sewing project. Literally all you have to be able to do is sew a straight line. I knocked two of these off in a matter of two and a half hours. It is a relatively cheap project. I got my towels at Ikea, but you could use any towels very successfully. And there are great deals to be had. In total I bought: 2 bath towels, 1 hand towel (this made 2 hoods), 1 white face cloth, 3 orange face cloths and 2 blue face cloths. I think if I were to do it again, I would choose a bath towel with fewer colours, as in true lazy fashion, I dislike having to change thread and bobbin a million times. You could make any animal really, bears would be really cute, or lady bugs, sharks, dinosaurs etc. Sky's the limit. And what a great gift- nice to give something that can be used from baby well into childhood as the towel is nice and big. These would be fun for bath time or the beach. And kids love them- Elio loves to play Pingou at bath time... you know the little clay penguin show on Knowledge Network? ("Mish mish...").

That's all folks. Try this one out- it is super fun. Happy Trails!