Caribbean cruise, November 17-22, 2007: part 4: towel animals

When making up guests’ rooms, the housekeeping crew folded towels into animal shapes and placed them on beds. They did it while guests were at dinner. There was a different animal each night. Coming from dinner, it was fun to wonder what kind of towel animal we’ll find tonight. Then on the last day of the cruise there was a workshop on how to make your own towel animals. It was only 30 minutes long, so we only got to make two animals, a dog and a seal. Not because they take that long to make, but because the instructors had to explain the same steps over and over to a million people.

To start making a towel dog, take a big towel, roll up its edges, making two “sausages”, and fold it in half.

Step 2 in making a towel dog: grab the two ends of each “sausage” in each hand and pull them away from each other. This makes a dog’s “body”. In this picture it is upside down.

This is what a towel dog’s body looks right side up after step 2.

To make a towel dog’s head, take a small towel, fold it in half length-wise, and fold down the corners.

Do it on both sides, and it kind of looks like this:

And then you turn it into something like this:

Step 2 in making towel dog’s head: turn it over, and fold down the upper corner.

Step 3 in making a towel dog’s head: then turn it over again, and start rolling up the sides.

Step 4 in making a towel dog’s head: the rolled-up sides become the dog’s ears.

Last step: place the dog’s head on the body, and voila — you have a towel dog. Since this dog doesn’t have eyes, you can put sunglasses on its head to hide the absence of eyes.

Towel elephant

Towel swan

Towel turtle

Towel seal

Towel heart

Towel cat

Here is a scene from a towel animal-making workshop. All these people have already succeeded in making a dog’s body. There are dog bodies all over the floor.