Wednesday, March 24, 2010

If I only had a hooded towel as a child, I might not need therapy!

How did my mom know I was thinking of hitting my little brother? How did she know that I wasn't asleep yet even though my eyes were closed? How did she know that I shoved stuff under my bed when it was time to clean my room? How did she know that I shoplifted lip gloss from Sears at age 6 (this story will be on another post)?

My mom had a gift, a super-natural power. And the best part of it all...it's hereditary. Now, I HAVE THE POWER (said like He-Man from the cartoon...and if you don't get this pop culture reference you are probably too young and I am jealous of your youth...or I guess you could be too old and then I would be envious of your wisdom...or you could have grown up with no TV like my husband and then I'm neither jealous nor envious).

Now that I possess this secret power, I realize that at times it has it's flaws...sometimes, the super hero is just plain wrong.

Case #1 - I've reached in the caverns of my memory to a time when I was the powerless child. I was told to go take a shower, but not to wash my hair because it was bed time.  Well, the only way I knew how to take a shower without getting my hair wet was to kind of dance with the shower. Back facing away from the stream of water, wet the wash cloth and lather with soap. Then wipe down your body and here's where the dancing comes in. You put your left arm in, you put your left arm out, you put your leg in and you shake it all about...you get it right? It was a quick shower. As I emerged wrapped in a towel, my mom stops me down the hall and says, "I told you to take a shower." "I did," I replied. Activate Mommy Powers! "No you didn't. You couldn't have taken a shower that fast." "But, I did," I insisted. My mother ran her finger down my back, "Your back is bone dry. You did not shower. I don't want to hear any arguing. Go take a shower." Do you think this injustice affected me? I remember the story, don't I? Now, as a mom with the secret power, I can see why she would have thought I was lying, but this proves my point...the power is flawed.

Case #2 - Fast forward...I'm the mom.  I send my 7 year old to bed. She doesn't like to go to bed and it's always a struggle. This time, she dilly dallied long enough and I sternly send her to bed. Soon I hear whispering. Activate Mommy Powers! She's not talking to anyone (her brother and sister are asleep), she must be reading (she likes to read outloud). I get up and quietly check up on her and she's sitting up under her covers. Well, I have the element of surprise on my side...so I sneak up to pull her covers off of her and give her a good earful. I pull off the covers only to see her kneeling down in her bed and just in time to hear her say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." She was praying. I felt like a horrible mother. I wanted to trade in my powers for a hole to crawl into.

So mothers, be aware that our gift can sometimes be faulty.

And in honor of my shower episode, today's idea is a hooded bath towel. You can make these in all different sizes. (If I had a hooded towel, my mother wouldn't have been able to run her finger down my back perhaps allowing me to explain what happened.)

I make them a lot in baby/toddler sizes for gifts. They are inexpensive and easy to make. The only downside is you need to have a sewing machine...which means sewing is required.


You will need a bath towel
a hand towel (same color as the bath towel)
about 2.5 yards of 1.5 inch wide ribbon (depends on how wide the towels are)
thread to match the ribbon
sewing machine
pins (to make the sewing easier)

Open the towel. Very often they have a decorative strip on the towels.  
That's exactly where the ribbon goes.
Fold the ribbon a little around the edges so about 1 inch overlaps on the other side.

Sew the ribbon to the towel as close to the edge as possible.


See the ribbon folded over to the other side?
Do that on both ends of the towel. Remember to keep the ribbon band on the same side of the towel.
Then do the same thing to the hand towel. With the hand towel, you are actually going to cut it in half if you want a smaller toddler hood. You can use the whole hand towel if you are doing a bigger size.
My sample is a smaller one, so here I've cut it in half. This is two hoods, so I ended up making two towels.


Then with pins, attach the bottom part of the cut hand towel (not the frayed edge) to the middle of the big towel. If you are using a whole hand towel, attach the widest part of the hand towel to the middle of the big towel.


Then sew it in place. I sew it on this side and the underside for extra strength.


Then on the frayed edges of the hand towel, place wrong sides together and sew it together. If you are using the whole hand towel, just put wrong sides together and sew the edges together.


Now, I'm not too fond of the hood being so pointy...so I sew a flat edge into the hood part. See below.


Turn everything right side out and there you have it.



You can do any variation on this. I've done the ribbon on the hood to go around the head. I've seen people put on appliques. If you are really fancy, you can embroider names into the towels. 
I guess you can turn a towel into your own super hero cape!

Be creative! But remember to use your powers for good!


3 comments:

  1. So cute. I loved it. You are a fabulous writer and a fabulous sewer. I didn't know that little trick about the pointy thing. I remember learning that but had forgotten it. Have to remember that. AND..... you are a FAbulous Super Hero Mommy with Super Duper powers! We all know that Noreen!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aha! Ethan will love his towel when he gets a little bigger :-) Thanks sister!

    ReplyDelete