When we were looking for a place to live here, we looked at apartment complexes, townhomes, townhouse complexes, and apartment buildings…………… started to lose the will to live……. In the end we chose an apartment complex, so for at least the first year, we are totally living it up. California style.

We have a fitness centre.

We have a pool.

We have a hot tub.

And even though it is January, it is California. And there ain’t no polar vortex here, and so the temperature, particularly for us Brits, is just fine and dandy. It’s pretty much a British summer’s day. Or in fact, probably nicer than that.

But walking back from the hot tub to our apartment? Kinda chilly. And of course you know that awkward having-to-hold-the-towel-in-place-while-walking-and-carrying-everything-else-at-the-same-time thing? Yeah. So I decided to modify some towels into wraps with the addition of a bit of elastic and velcro.

Easy as pie. Or easier. Some people really struggle with pastry.

So, first things first, you want some towels. I just used some I had lying around that I bought at IKEA a while back before we moved:

Just take the towel and wrap it around yourself, noting the amount of overlap you want at the front. Take measurements of the length of overlap, and the total measurement around the chest (or whichever part of the body you want to wrap it around). I ad decided to use velcro for the overlap area, and use elastic on the remaining part to ensure it stays snug and wrapped around the body.

In my case, the towel overlap was 13 1/2″, the chest measurement 34″. The total length of the towel was 55″.

The final item will then be 34″ in total, so the elasticated part needs to be 34-13 1/2 = 20 1/2″. That part on the original towel is 55 – (2×13 1/2) = 28″.

Make sense?

I cut two pieces of snag-free velcro, 13 1/2″ each, then a piece of elastic for the central section of 18″. I sewed the piece of velcro for the outer wrap of towel on first (right side of the towel, so it was a little neater on the outside), then firmly attached the elastic for the central section, folded over the upper edge of the towel, then stitched it down along the entire edge:

In this case, because I used 1 1/4″ elastic, as it was all I had, the folded over part is 1 1/2″-ish.

Once I had done that, I applied the other piece of velcro to the outside of the inner wrap piece and it was done!

As an extra bit of security, I also put a buttonhole and button on the end, so there was less risk of it falling down.

Done!

Now for the not very flattering mirror selfie shots:

(On one of them I took the tag off… the other I hadn’t yet clearly!)

Now to the hot tub!