Welcome to another round of my Family Adventure Series. This week is all about one of our all-time favorite movies around here: You can read all about my son’s HTTYD obsession below. I hope you like the Toothless hooded towel that I made him — he is obsessed with it! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what he and I have been working on lately. He LOVES it, and actually following through with the idea has made me feel like an awesome mom. Come snag the printables that I will be sharing for our project and you can feel like an awesome mom too! 🙂
Hi, friends! Today I am SO EXCITED to share my Toothless hooded towel, inspired by Hiccup’s loyal dragon bestie, Toothless, in the How to Train Your Dragon movie series. A couple weeks ago I shared this over on my cousin Amber’s blog, Crazy Little Projects. She is an amazing seamstress and has an entire series of fabulous hooded towels. You must see them!
A little over a year ago I told Amber that I wanted to make my son a Toothless inspired hooded towel and post it as a guest post on her blog. Then I heard a sequel was coming out, so we decided to put the post off until now, when HTTYD fever would be at a high and when you fabulous readers may be looking for some fresh HTTYD inspiration!
My son is a HTTYD fanatic. For about three months straight last year he would only respond to the name “Hiccup,” even at school and church, and at home he walked around in a viking helmet, vest, and ONE boot at all times. Why ONE boot, you ask? Because he had a peg leg, of course! He referred to my husband as “Toothless” at all times and had to ride Toothless’ back up the stairs to bed each night. I love his vivid imagination. It makes me sad that is growing up so fast! Needless to say, I threw him a How To Train Your Dragon birthday party last year.
Now that we have established that I have a true blue HTTYD fan in my home, you must surely understand why this kids NEEDED a Toothless hooded towel!! He is obsessed with the Minion Towel that Amber made for him, but he still needed Toothless. A bubble bath bather needs options, dontcha think?
Now let’s get sewing! If my directions don’t make sense to you then you can always refer to Amber’s Hooded Towel Tutorial or her Lion Hooded Towel tutorial, which are the two tutorials that I used to figure out how to make this one. True story. Amber is a seamstress extraordinaire.
Here is Toothless, for those of you who don’t know. (Seriously . . . why don’t you know him?! How to Train Your Dragon (the original, although the sequel is good too) is one of the cutest and least annoying kid movies EVER! And that is coming from someone who has seen it, oh, a GAZILLION times. Watch it. You won’t be sorry.)
Toothless the Dragon Hooded Towel
Supplies Needed:
Black Hand Towel
Black Bath Towel
Small amount of emerald green felt
Small amounts of black felt
Heat ‘n’ Bond
Instructions:
To make this hooded towel, first cut your hand towel in half (horizontally, or, as I would have told my third grade students, “the hamburger direction, not the hot dog direction”). 😉 Next, fold the finished edge of the towel under about 3 inches and sew it in place.
Flip the hand towel piece over so that the folded under piece will be hidden. You will be creating the face on the other (non-folded under) side of the towel. Cut out Toothless’ eyes from the green felt. I used an almond shape and cut them about 4″ long and 2.5″ tall. Sorry, but there are no pattern pieces. I’m not fancy like Amber . . . I just wing it. Cut out Toothless’ pupils from the black felt. I just did ovals that were about 2″ long and 1.25″ wide. Cut those same shapes out again on the Heat ‘n Bond. Iron the Heat ‘n Bond to one side of the eyes, then place your eyes where you want them on the towel and iron them in place. (Check the directions on the package if you haven’t used Heat ‘n Bond before. Here’s a Heat ‘n Bond for working with thicker fabrics like felt. Since it is harder for the iron’s heat to get through felt I always iron the base fabric (towel) first, then peel off the paper and stick the Heat ‘n Bond onto the towel, and then iron on top of the felt. Heat to seal it in from every direction.) You’ll want to leave room in front of the eyes for Toothless’ nose, so be careful. Mine were placed about 2.5″ from the edge of the towel.
Now applique your eyes into place. (The Heat ‘n Bond helps them stay in place while you do that, so don’t skip it!) I am NOT an applique pro, so please forgive my mistakes. This was actually only my third time doing applique, so I don’t have any tips, but Amber has a post on how to applique HERE.
Use the leftover other half of your hand towel to cut out Toothless’ pointy nose and ears. (And horns? Not sure what the middle two are….) For the pointy nose, cut out two triangles, about 9″ wide and 4″ tall. For the larger ears cut FOUR rectangles that are about 3.5″ wide and 5.5″ tall. For the smaller ears (horns??) cut FOUR rectangles that are about 2″ wide and 3″ tall. Now you are going to round out the ears (and horns). I just looked and them and trimmed a bit to round off the tops. Not exact, sorry.
Pin the pieces together, sew the sides and top (not the bottom!), and flip inside out.
Attach the pointy nose to the face with a tight zigzag stitch (I actually did the same applique stitch) all across the top of the nose, which will seal off the open triangle bottom. I placed that open bottom (now the top of the nose) 1.5″ above the folded edge of the towel. (No pic, sorry.)
In order to place the ears (and horns?) you will need to cut your hand towel again. This is a crucial step or the ears will be on the back of your little dragon trainer’s head. Cut the towel where you want the ears placed. I made my cut about 6″ from the folded edge of the towel.
Carefully place and pin your ears into place. I put the small ones (horns?) just above the inside of the pupils. The larger ones are just on the outside of the pupils.
Lay the leftover towel piece on top of the face and pin well. BE SURE THE EARS ARE POINTING DOWNWARD TOWARD THE NOSE! Now sew along the edge.
Now sew along the edge carefully (it’s pretty thick at this point, so you *may* need a heavy duty needle). Unfold and admire your work.
Now fold your face in half (MAKE SURE THE EARS ARE POINTING DOWN TOWARD THE NOSE AGAIN!!!!!) and pin, as shown below. Sew up the back of the head to make the hooded part of the hooded towel.
Unfold the hood (still inside out) so that the nose is in the center and it looks like a big diamond. Sew across the top of the diamond just a little way down and snip off the point, just to make the hood less pointy. (If that doesn’t make sense you could always skip it. Not essential — purely aesthetic.)
Time to switch to your large bath towel. Find the center of your bath towel on the long side. Form a small pleat like the one that you see below. It is folded in about 1.5″ on each side.
Sew that pleat into place with a zig zag stitch.
Time to add your hood (aka Toothless head)! Match the center of your pleat to the center of your hood and carefully pin along the hood, moving outward, until it is all attached. ONCE AGAIN, MAKE SURE THE EARS ARE POINTING TOWARD THE NOSE SO THEY DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE SEWING!!
Carefully sew the hood onto the towel and you are D-O-N-E!!!
I know your little dragon trainer will love it — mine sure does!!
If you enjoyed this post then I hope that you will follow along with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for more ideas and inspiration!
Here is another great How to Train Your Dragon idea for your little dragon trainers:
Make your own Big Book of Dragons (Free Printable!)
Below you can see a few more of my sewing tutorial that you may enjoy. Have a great day!
Ruffled Toddler Apron Tutorial
Dr. Seuss Room: Fabulously Fun DIY Pillows
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What a lovely idea, wish I had grandchild to sew that for. but at 17 and 19 they have other interests:):)
Love your model.
Thanks!
This is SO cute! I love it!
Thanks, Amy!
This is seriously the cutest EVER!
Thanks, Heidi! 🙂
Thank you for such amazing instructions. I look forward to seeing how excited my Hiccup Is when he opens his dragon towel. He’ll have one for when he sees me and one for when he’s at home!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That makes me so happy to hear!!!