Duck Tails

So my sister (you know, the one who should pay me to be her personal seamstress) asked me to make some presents for a birthday party she's taking her girls to.  She wanted hooded towels with ducks, neither of which are my favorite.

Luckily for her, she found these really cute chick faces at Lynnie Pinnie.  The towels are for a boy/girl set of twins, so I got to stitch both the girly face and the boy face.

Both designs can be found here

I used knits for the applique fabric and loved it.  They lay much nicer than the woven fabrics I've used on towels.  The only thing I didn't like was that I had to do a lot of resizing to get the designs to match.  The girl face is a lot smaller than the boy face, because of the flower.  I believe I used the boy 5x7 design at 82% and the girl 6x10 design at 110%, moving the flower so that it would fit in a 5x7 hoop.  The end result was that all the features they have in common are the same size (unlike in my pictures).

Those faces were so cute that I was happy to stitch them out, but I really got excited about the project when my sister sent me the link to a duck tail design.

I used the font "Fudge" from 8 Claws & a Paw

I resized the tail to 150%, crossing my fingers because that's more than I should have increased it (and it was from a site I had never purchased from before.)  I removed the fill stitches that were in the center of the tail design and just did the satin stitch, which I thought ended up looking pretty neat.  Then I added the names in 1-inch letters, at 120% I think. (Wouldn't you know it, I threw my notes away.  Man, I am off my game today!)  I put the tails & names on the back of the towel, a few inches up from the bottom.  I think they turned out so cute!

My model is off her game today too--
this is the best picture we got :)

If you're interested in making a hooded towel--they're super easy--check out the tutorial on Cole's Corner & Creations.