Poncho Towels

The Peacock Family are off on holiday next week (driving to Northern France), and in the hope that we may enjoy a few days warm weather – enough to enjoy the pool at our rented cottage; I made these poncho towels this afternoon.

I bought 3 beach towels in primark, they have a velvety side and a ‘towel’ side and have an orange edge on the two short sides. They were £3 each! I used one whole towel and the short edge of the extra one for each poncho. I measured and cut a pattern that would fit over Martha’s head with newspaper, I didn’t want to make the hole too big or it would fall over her narrow shoulders, I folded the whole towel in quarters and put the quartered pattern in the centre of the towel (see photo). For the hood, I measured the circumference of the hole and halved the measurement this was 10″ in this case so I cut the short edge of the extra towel 10″ by 20″, folded it to make a square and stitched the back of the hood (with the orange edge for around their faces and the fold for the top of their heads). Then pinned the hood to the hole (starting at the back seam of the hood) to the back of the hole and working towards the front where (fingers crossed my measurements were right) the two orange edges met. Then stitched round the whole hole/hood egde.

I think they look pretty good, Alice’s is the same size as Martha’s – she can grow into it -and they have both been playing ‘wizards’ in them in the garden ever since! Lets hope the weather is good enough on holiday that we can properly try them out – I might give them a wash first, new towels are rubbish at drying.

Paddlepool

It’s hot this week, I find that a quick dip in the paddling pool will keep most kids more than happy on a sunny day. We had been out and it was fairly late in the day so I didn’t bother with the big inflatable paddling pool and filled up the lid of the sandpit. It only takes a few minutes to fill and you are not using an excess of water, lets face it most kids are happy with a bucketful. I find that the whinge-ing that accompanies the hunt for (pool and pump), the pumping up and the filling of the bigger pool, when everyone is hot and bothered, takes the shine off the whole experience!

Martha and Alice had a wonderful time splashing about and I was able to get some lovely pics of them with my old and trusty waterproof camera.

Enjoy the sunshine!