Saturday, April 19, 2008

hooded bath towel tutorial (unedited)

Project: to make baby a hooded towel like toddler's

the edited version can be found here.

the toddler


1) put sleeping baby in crib.
2) gather materials:

1 bath towel (i used one 30 in. by 54 in.)
1 hand towel (i used one 16 in. by 26 in.)
17 in. of ribbon (or one inch longer than the length of your hand towel)
coordinating thread

3) consider ironing towels so will look nice and pretty, but decide, hey, they're towels.
4) take camera away from toddler who is taking pictures with it.
5) realize it is time to get dinner started.
6) start dinner
7) kitchen faucet will not turn off, or even slow to a trickle.
8) try several different ways to turn off faucet.
9) yell at faucet
10) apologize to toddler for yelling at faucet.
11) get bucket to collect the large amounts of hot water that is being wasted down the drain
12) try to turn off valves that are below the sink a few times
13) switch buckets
14) run downstairs to find the main water valve
15) run upstairs to find a screwdriver
16) since previous owners have painted the panel covering the main water valve shut, unscrewing the screws is a lot harder than anticipated.
17) think uncharitable thoughts toward previous owners
18) switch buckets
19) hug toddler who is worried about mother's sanity
20) run back to try to pry off panel

toddler playing with hot water in the tub

21) hubby is back early from meeting, hurray!
22) hubby finishes prying off panel and baseboard, but can't get main water valve to turn off.
23) change toddler's clothes, which are wet
24) hubby tries to turn off water valve under the sink
25) pick up waking baby
26) hubby is successful, making wife feel a little weak.

the old demon faucet

27) hubby kindly takes over dinner while wife comforts the crying baby.
28) put baby in exersaucer while the toddler entertains herself and the baby by running up and down the hall

29) cut the hand towel in half. only use one half, save the other half to make another towel or sew matching ribbon on it to make a matching washcloth if you'd like.
30) let hubby borrow camera so he can take pictures of faucet so he can put it back together


31) pin ribbon on hand towel. i like it in the middle of the decorative part of the towel.



32) sew on ribbon. i did it right along the edge of the ribbon, so as not to notice the mismatched thread, but i noticed that the toddler's bath towel's ribbon was sewn on 1/4 of inch from the ribbon's edge, which made it kind of ruffly.
33) stop toddler from hitting baby
34) let toddler take pictures with camera
35) fold hand towel in half lengthwise, right sides together, like so:


36) sew up unfinished ends
37) grab camera from toddler, suggest she play peek a boo with baby.
38) realize i have wrong measurements for hood. hood is much too long for a baby or even toddler
39) measure toddler's towel, which she finds offensive.


40) recut hand towel to 10 inches long
41) sew up hand towel again
42) eat dinner
43) go to home depot for new faucet. old faucet's handle was broken before this incident, so it wasn't just throwing away a pair of shoes for want of a shoelace. more like throwing away a pair of shoes for want of two shoelaces. :)
44) baby and toddler have fun driving the cart (one of those cool carts that look like a car) until the baby finds his sister's clothes highly entertaining.
45) go home
46) change the baby's diaper
47) change the batteries to the camera


48) fold the bath towel in half widthwise like so. well, fix the bottom edges, but it really doesn't matter, since all you are sewing on is the top.
49) align hood to middle of bathtowel


shiny.
50) admire new faucet and congratulate hubby on a project well done.
51) pin middle of hood to middle of bath towel
52) feed baby
53) sew hood to bath towel. since both ends are covered in bias tape, no need to worry about serging.
54) show to toddler, along with her bath towel so she doesn't get too jealous.


55) when inspecting toddler's towel, and thinking about serging, I realized I needed to fake-serge (sorry, don't know the proper name for the stitch) the cut end.
56) then moan about loss of natural light.
57) give toddler and baby a bath in order to use said bath towel.


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2 comments:

Irish Cream said...

Jillian linked me to this page. Thanks for sharing! It's good to know that my projects aren't the only one that go from a 20-minute "quicky" to a three-hour ordeal!

bec said...

isn't it sad how often that happens?