towel gorilla

Cruise passengers everywhere enjoy their nightly towel animal.  Many wish to unfold the mystery of how to fold these delightful creations.  With the help of a very cooperative Carnival stateroom steward, we discovered the secret on our last cruise.

To make a towel gorilla, start with the standard towel animal body, same as the rabbit or frog.  Lay out a large bath towel and roll both ends in to the center.  Start each end by folding over just a little bit and don’t roll too tightly.

roll each half to the middle

Fold rolled towel in half, rolls to the outside.  Pull the tips out of the end of each roll.  Holding both tips of the same roll in one hand, and the other roll in the other hand, pull rolls tightly into two sets of two legs on animal body.

fold rolled towel in half, rolled part to the outside

pull the tips out of the end of each towel roll

take both ends of the same roll in the same hand

finished body

For the head, use a small bath towel or large hand towel.  Fold 1/3 of towel crosswise.

fold up 1/3 of the towel

Fold the part you’ve just folded over the remaining third.

fold the folded part over again

Fold first one corner down onto itself in a triangle, and then the other so the whole thing becomes one big triangle.

fold corner down like a triangle

fold other corner down, making large triangle

Fold the long side at the bottom up as if making a paper hat.  It sort of resembles a sailboat at this point if you have a good imagination.

fold back long side of triangle

Fold the whole thing in half down the middle, with all previous folds on the outside.

fold triangle in half

Push a nose out the center of what were the two triangles, and shape as desired.

pushe nose out from center of folded triangle, shape into head

Place head between the two sets of legs and pull body into sitting position while bringing legs toward each other as well as toward you, same as with the frog.

put the head into the center of the body

fold legs toward center while pulling gorilla up to sitting possition

Position gorilla legs as desired and decorate with sunglasses.

green gorilla head made from hand towel, pink from small bath towel

Gorilla Head with Open Mouth

If you would like your gorilla to have an open mouth you just need to watch the position of the earlier folds in the head towel as you put in the later ones.

before folding the triangle parts make sure the loose end is underneath the towel on the side where the point will be

After the initial three folds, set the towel down with the part that has an open edge underneath and the part where both ends have folds on top. Make the folds for the triangle from the side with the open edge so that the open edge is at the point of the triangle and coming down the edges where the triangles meet.

fold over the towel across the long edge

Fold the long edge over the top of the towel.

fold both sides together with everything that was on top staying on the outside

Fold the towel in half keeping the top part as the outside. Hold the neck bits that hand down with one hand to keep the head together while pulling down the lower edge that did not have a fold at the start to make the gorilla’s mouth open.

set the head on the body tucking it between the arms and decorate

Tuck the head between the arms of the body to keep it together and decorate as desired. I put googly eyes and a tongue on this one.

The gorilla is the fourth of a series on folding individual towel animals.  For more towel animal instructions, check out the seal, rabbit, frog, pig,  crab, or snake. It may not be an animal, but for more towel folding ideas, how about the easier to fold and sometimes useful towel cake? To see all the towel folding instructions visit My Cruise Stories Towel Animal Page.

towel gorilla decorated with eyes instead of sunglasss

For lots of towel animal photos, visit my facebook albums, Fun With Towel Animals or Towel Animals Tour Carnival Liberty.

Next up in this series, the ever-popular hanging towel monkey.

Hanging Towel Monkey

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