Make a Panda Bear Hooded Towel

My son loves panda bears (love panda bears, too? You might like my panda party, panda ears tutorial or panda pancakes). Now that he's 2 and huge, he needed some bigger towels for bath time. What better creature to make a hooded towel like than his favorite snuggly panda?

I followed the same technique taught by Amber at Crazy Little Projects. If you have never made a hooded towel, do yourself a favor and read her very thorough tutorial. Then come back here and see how to adapt it to make a panda.

Supplies

• White bath towel
• White hand towel
• Black bath towel
• Black washcloth
• Fusible Interfacing (I used Heat'n Bond Lite Iron-on Adhesive)
• Matching thread
• Sewing machine, scissors, iron, Walking Foot if you have one.

Cut list:
White hand towel: Cut in half across the narrow width
Black bath towel: Cut off the top third of the towel across the longest width of the towel
Black washcloth: Cut out 4 ear shaped pieces (remember to cut them bigger than you need them). Then iron on the fusible interfacing to the remaining washcloth material. Cut out two kidney bean shaped pieces for eye shadows and a nose.

Hood

1. Fold in the front edge of the towel past any band that might be on the towel. Using white thread, sew across. This is the front edge of your hood.
2. Switch to black thread. Stitch around the curve of the ears, leaving the flat edges open. Flip ears so stitches are inside.
3. Iron down the eye patches and nose. Use a zig zag stitch to applique these pieces to the hood.
4. Cut slits in the hood where you want the ears to go. Insert ears and sew to hood from the inside.
5. Fold hood in half down the middle of the face, right sides together and sew with white thread.

(Are these instructions not making sense? They assume you're familiar with basic hooded towel construction. Be sure to read Amber's great hooded towel tute if you haven't yet.)

This is what your finished hood should look like:

Body

1. Placing right sides together and being sure to line up any bands on the narrow ends of the towels, lay the long black bath towel strip along the long edge of the white bath towel . Sew together and open. 
2. To keep the seam flat, I opened up the back side of this seam and stitched down the length of the towel on both sides.
3. Make a tuck along the top edge of the black section and pin in place (refer to Amber's tutorial).
4. Center the hood seam to line up with the tuck and sew, attaching the hood to the body of the towel

Enjoy!

Panda Pancakes!

I've been seeing pictures floating around pinterest of some awesome pancake art. Most of them are from Jim's Pancakes - who has brought pancaking to an art form. Amazing stuff. Check it out if you are looking for awesome pancake inspiration!

I'd had the idea in my head to do panda pancakes for a while. I tried the "blob" technique where I just blobbed the batter onto the pan, and while it looked okay on the griddle:

It did not look so great when I took it off. So un-great in fact, there is not even photographic evidence of it's existence.

For my next attempt, I decided to try watered down batter in squeeze jars. These turned out much better:

Here is how I did it:

Panda Bear Books

In case you haven't noticed, we've been on a bit of a panda kick over here. Birthday pandas, Panda Ears, a Panda Party....we sure love pandas! Which is why I was really delighted to get a copy of Thank You, God, For Mommy by Amy Parker through Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program.

The book follows a little panda and his panda mommy. He thanks God for her and how she's such a good mommy who cares about others, gives boo-boo kisses, takes time to be silly, sings him to sleep and takes such good care of baby panda. It's a sturdy, padded cover board book and is a favorite of my one year old son, Kaypha. He loves to flip through the pages looking at the beautifully done illustrations. We've definitely made it part of our every day routine and usually read it before bedtime. The rhyming words and storyline are sweet...plus there's at least two pandas on every page! It's well done and I'm sure will continue to grow with Kaypha. This book would make a great gift for moms and young kids.