Up until about a month ago, Ryder only got two baths a week. He was born in the fall, so he was never sweaty, and since we have really hard water, I didn’t want to dry his skin out more than it already might in a harsh winter. Since he wasn’t being bathed often, we didn’t need a huge selection of towels.  His first one was definitely made for newborns.  The hood was tiny, and so was the rest of the towel.  But it worked for a few weeks.

The next one we owned was very cute (complete with puppy ears) and had a roomy hood, perfect for our little guy’s “moose head.” The one (substantial) drawback was that the actual towel part wasn’t that big.  So we used it for longer than preferred because it was all we had.

Then, at Christmastime, we received an absolutely adorable addition to our hooded towel repertoire from my in-laws’ neighbors. The hood is still quite large, but the towel part is much bigger as well. It’s sturdy and well-made, and it makes me giggle every time we use it.

Once Ryder started eating solids and crawling, we had to add in some additional baths here and there. And in order to augment our bedtime routine, we’re now taking a bath every night. Unfortunately, this makes only having one usable towel very tricky in terms of washing.

Recently, I began following a friend’s blog, and discovered an awesome Hooded Towel Tutorial. I purchased a cheap towel and hand towel at Meijer, and washed them up. I was all ready to sew, sew, sew, and my machine busted. So after a “full service tune-up” I’m back in action. I took advantage of a quick napping session this morning, and voila! It was super quick, very easy, and perfect for our needs.

In Beckie’s tutorial, the pleat on the back is the other way around… I did it this way on accident (because I didn’t pay attention to which side was the “right side” on my towel), but decided that I kinda liked it this way anyway.

So now, in addition to our monster towel, we have another one so that I don’t have to wash the monster so often.  Can’t wait to find towels with other great designs on them to add to our stash… and this has now been added to my “favorite baby shower gift idea” list as well.  Thanks Beckie!