How to Fold a Towel Dragonfly

how to fold cruise ship towel animals

Towel Dragonfly

The previous towel animal blog was a dragon, which is one of the more difficult towel animals to make.  It seems only fitting now to do a very easy dragonfly.

Supplies Needed to Make a Towel Dragonfly

MSC Version                                                                  Alternative Option

1. One bath towel                                                         1. one bath towel

2. Two hand towels                                                      2. two hand towels

3. eyes                                                                           3. eyes and antennae

Making a towel dragonfly with Bagus from MSC Divina

 How to Fold a Towel Dragonfly Body

MSC Version

MSC cruises towel dragonfly

Fold bath towel in half crosswise and fold in corner of the non-folded end

Fold the bath towel in half across the short side.

Fold over one corner on the open end.

towel art

roll the towel diagonally starting from the folded corner

Roll towel from the folded corner.

towel origami

roll the tip at the widest end of the towel

Making sure towel corner at the middle of the roll faces up, roll one end of the towel up, then flip towel over so rolled side is underneath.

the art of towel folding

set the towel with the rolled tip underneath

Towel Dragonfly Body – My Version

This style is more difficult to make, but it has a longer body in relation to the wings more like an actual dragonfly.

towel animal folding directions

lay bath towel flat and fold 1/4 of the towel over on the end of one short side

Lay the bath towel out flat.  Fold down one quarter of the towel across short side.

towel animal folding directions

fold over one corner on the folded end of the towel

Fold down one corner of the folded end.  Other than the initial fold to shorten the body a bit, this option of the dragonfly body is much like making my version of a towel snake.

folding towels into animal shapes

make the folded corner into a pointy end by folding down both sides of the towel at that corner

Fold both sides of the towel at the folded corner so it makes a pointy end with the point at the center of the folded corner.  This will be one long side and one short side of the towel and the amount of folded towel will not be even. This doesn’t matter. The only important part is having a pointy end at the center of the folds.

making animals out of towels

roll the towel from the far end of the folded long side

Start rolling from the far corner of the long side with the fold.

the art of towel origami

keep the folds at the center of the pointy end flush while rolling the towel

Keep on rolling until the entire towel is rolled into one roll.  Make sure the folds at the center of the pointy end stay flush.

towel animals

lay the body out flat with the folds of the pointy end on the bottom

Set towel with folded side of pointy end down and pull opposite end tight for tail.

Make wings near head end of body.

  How to Make Towel Dragonfly Wings

towel animal folding

lay hand towel next to dragonfly body, more forward to the head end is best

Lay hand towel long side next to the body.

making towels into animals

scrunch in the center of the wing towel to make two wings

Scrunch in the middle to make two wings.

towel dragonfly in the making

set out wing towel on other side and scrunch to center

Repeat with other towel on other side.  Adjust wings as desired.

 Finishing the Towel Dragonfly

decorations make all the difference on towel animals

Use googly eyes or bits of felt or draw your own bug eyes on paper

Decorate with eyes.  Add antennae or other embellishments if desired.  Use double stick tape to hold on eyes and antennae if necessary.  Googly eyes work great, but if you don’t have them bits of felt or paper work for eyes too.

easy towel dragonfly

finished  easy towel dragonfly

I used a pipe cleaner (chenille stem) for the antennae (see top photo), but so long as there are no small children or animals that might get hurt on them things like pins with balls on the end or large colorful plastic needles would work too, with the bonus that they would hold themselves on and you could use one for each side.

For more towel animal folding instructions please visit My Cruise Stories towel animal page where you just click the picture of the animal you want to make to get directions on how to fold it.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2014

About LBcruiseshipblogger


8 Responses to How to Fold a Towel Dragonfly

  1. Ralph says:

    Yay ! Another one !! it’s great !! ❤

  2. Chris says:

    The dragon fly looks harder to move around then most other towel animals. I guess it’s a good thing it’s easier to fold.

  3. Alexandra says:

    Thank you. I enjoy your blogs. They lighten up my responsibility filled life!
    You are an interesting and creative woman!

  4. When you go on a cruise, does room service provide a different whimsical towel creature every day?

    Unrelated: how’s your recovery going?

    • Some ships have towel animals for everyone every day. Carnival, Holland America, and Norwegian always have them. On the Divina it depended on the stateroom steward. Ours didn’t know how, but he had a friend who did so we got a bunch of videos of him. The dragonfly is one of them, also the crocodile that I posted not too long ago.

      Unrelated: I’ve started strengthening exercises in physical therapy. It took me 2 weeks to work up to one pound on the weight so I guess that arm is pretty wimpy.

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