Hooded Shark Towel

Hooded towels are one of my favorite projects right now. In case you missed them here are some I made for my kids and for presents: cat, monkey, dinosaur. My latest version was for a baby boy destined to be pretty cool. So, this shark towel was perfect for him! I love having a big towel to wrap baby in, and they will fit when they grow old as well. It’s also super simple to make if you’d like to try your hand at it. Looking for something even more simple? Try buying one from my store. I’ve been told I should sell them so I’m trying my hand at it. The dinosaur, cat, and monkey versions should be coming to my store soon. But now, on to the how it’s made portion.

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Hooded Shark Towel

Tutorial

What you need:
Standard size gray towel
Gray hand towel
Small amount knit white fabric (I used some white cotton knit from a t shirt) It is knit fabric so it will not fray much.
applique/fusible web to stiffen fabric for the teeth
pattern for fin and teeth (free print out here)
Small amount of black yarn/thread to embroider eyes

Cut out a 9″ by 13″ rectangle from a side of the hand towel. Make sure one of the 13″ sides is on an edge. It will be the front edge of the hood. Plan out the fin shapes to ensure you’ll have enough space for everything. The straight side of each fin should be on a finished edge. Cut two of the fin shapes from the hand towel.

You can see how I planned out my cuts from this picture:

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Put the fin pieces right sides together and stitch around the unfinished edges leaving a 1/2″ seam… leave the finished (straight) edges un-stitched and turn it inside out.

Lie down the rectangular piece right side up. Place fin along the side opposite the finished edge, 1/2 inch from the lower edge (step 1 in the picture below). Fold the top part of the rectangle down, in half, over the fin (step 2-3 in picture below). With the fin sandwiched in this seam, sew along this side. Zigzag stitch, or go a few passes with straight stitch, to cover most the raw edges and then trim any extra.

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Fold the hood as shown and sew straight across the top point (where the ruler is at in the top picture. Make sure it doesn’t sew through any of the fin.

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Turn right side out.

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Pin the remaining unfinished edge of the hood to the middle of towel, right sides together. I find the middle of the towel and match it with the middle of the hood (at the seam) and then pin the sides. Pin and match the rest of the unfinished edge and sew. Make sure to keep the fin folded out of the way and not to sew over it. Again use zigzag to sew over raw edges and trim any extra.

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matching the center seam of hood to the center of the towel
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pin the rest of the raw edge of the hood to the towel
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sewing the hood to the towel on my vintage ’50s machine

Next, make the teeth. I ironed some fusible web for applique between two thicknesses of the fabric I used for the teeth.

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ironing applique to stiffen fabric

Then I cut out the tooth pattern. Lie the straight line on a fold. The teeth need to be about 12 inches long and the pattern goes for less than that so you will trace along it about 1 1/2 times. I made a total of 20 teeth. See the picture.

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Sew along the edge of the teeth if you’d like. Then sew the teeth onto the opening of the hood.

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Embroider eyes.

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Done!

You may notice some loose threads after the first one or two washes. Just trim them and it shouldn’t happen again if you sewed over the raw edges well.

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