Froggy Hooded Towel

Well I do have to admit, my 1st hooded towel turned out pretty good. Sunee's baby was my guinea pig though. I knew Sunee loved frogs so I found a picture of a froggy hooded towel on ebay. To my dismay I was outbid and there were no more. I thought that maybe I could just make my own and that it would be simple. Well, I was right and wrong. Simple, yes now that I made my own pattern. Hard, yes because it took me forever to figure it all out. People assume that I'm a good sewer cause my mom is. NOPE! I'm way bad compared to her...my seams are all uneven and crooked, but hey...it's a towel for a baby so it's okay. I needed to post the steps on here before I forget (mostly to help myself remember for next time)...yeah, I think there will be a next time anyways.

So I had coupons over Memorial Day to get fabric 1/2 off, so I found that JoAnn Fabrics had terrycloth for $5.99/yd. I needed 1 1/2 yards of yellow, 1/2 yd of green, one white wash cloth and scraps of black fleece. Tip: wash fabric and dry before cutting it out. The yellow towel measured 45" square (pretty big for a baby, perfect for a toddler). The next are the patterns I made for the eyes, self explanatory..cut 4 of green, 2 of white and 2 of black. I allowed just enough to zigzag and turn over. The big mouth was going to be sewn into a tube but I ended up just zigzagging over a new cut thin smile and it was better.

Sew the eyes in the right order. Zigzag edges of black onto white (don't turn under). Then sew white onto 1 green. Zigzag back and forth to make white sparkle. Right faces together, sew green parts. I never made a pattern for the hood, but the triangle dimmensions are 14 1/2" from the top point to left corner and 14 1/2" to the right corner. Along the bottom I put it on a fold to make 23" inches across. Vertically from the top point to the bottom center should be 9" when folded in half. Shoulda make a picture, sorry (these ones are not folded but opened all the way). The mouth is just a curved strip of black fleece 9" by 1/4". Line up eyes (a couple inches down from top point) and mouth onto triangle. Using pins or pen marks make 1/2' tall lines for the nose holes. Zizag with black thread. Zizgag over mouth.

After I sewed both eyes, I stuffed them with foam leftover from my window seat. You can find it at the fabric store or just use batting. Pinch bottom of eyes closed and fold over (see above picture) and sew to triangle. Now fold the green triangle in half (with fold along the bottom) and sew up the edge of the left side and over to the 2nd eye. Leave an opening for foam insert. It's okay for the seam to show, it will be covered up with binding in a minute. Now insert foam. Sew hole closed. Pin onto yellow square, lining up corners.

Using the extra wide double fold binding, pin starting at top of head an follow all the way around towel. I purchased 2 of these packages and only had 6 inches left over..perfect! When you get to the corners, just overlap it a bit to make a crease. Finish last inch by turning binding under and sew. Last of all, hand stitch the eyes at the top by just tacking it to the hood not all the way through to the yellow. Put hand inside the hood to help guide you.

I had to have a baby model. Drake cooperated somewhat! Tell me what you think. It would have been a lot easier to just buy a towel from the store and rig the dimmensions how I wanted, but oh well.