How To Fold a Towel Monkey
Supplies Needed for Hanging Towel Monkey
1 bath towel 1 hand towel decorations hangings
How to Fold a Hanging Towel Monkey Body
The hanging towel monkey uses the standard towel animal body. Lay bath towel flat and roll both ends to the center from the short sides.
Fold rolled towel in half with the rolls to the outside. Pull the tip out of the center of each roll.
With one hand holding the tips from both ends of one roll, and the other hand holding the tips of both ends of the other roll, pull tips of all 4 rolls until rolls pull into legs of towel animal body.
If you lack the hand strength to pull the whole thing at once, pull as much as you can to get it started and then use one hand on each end of the same roll to pull one side at a time.
To hang the monkey, either use two clothespins to pin the arms to a hanger, or tie a string around the ends of both arms and hang it over a curtain rod, hook, or whatever is available to tie it to.
How To Fold An Open-Mouthed Monkey Head
Fold the hand towel in half across the short side.

Make the second fold so that the open edges are at the top of the towel. Open edges here are both at the top of the photo and sitting on the top of the folded towel. The open edges will be upper lips, If the open edges are on the underside of the towel at this point they come out as lower lips.
Fold in half again. You have several options depending on how you want the finished monkey head to look. The open edges on the short end will always be where you fold your triangle points. If they are on the top side of the towel, they will be the top lips on the finished head. If they are on the bottom side of the towel, they will end up as the bottom lips. Then you can decide if you want to open the mouth between the two open edges so that the towel hem makes a lip, or for a wider open mouth you can leave those edges together and open between folds so one lip is both open ends together and the other is a folded edge .

The open edges are folded across the towel in this triangle. Because they were on top before folding the triangles, they will end up as upper lips when this head is done.
Fold one side over from center to form a triangle.

The open edges now face each other in the center. They are now under folded edges and will come out as upper lips.

Here the open edges started out on the underside of the towel so are now on top. They will end up as lower lips.
Fold the other side over from center to form a second triangle.

fold the top triangles to the back, away from each other so the open edges that were at the center are on the outside once the two smaller triangles are folded together

Folded into a small triangle with open edges on the outside. This one will have the open edges as lower lips.
Fold the two triangles into one with the back sides together and the open ends on the outside of the center fold.

Fold down the corners of the loose ends of both sides of the triangle so there are no points sticking up.

the head does not hold its shape on its own, but the monkey’s arms will hold it together once it gets tucked between them
Fold down corners on both sides of triangle.

you can open the mouth between the open ends so the towel edges look like lips whether they are on the top or on the bottom like this one
Open folds at rounded end to create mouth.
Use felt or red paper to make a tongue that highlights the open mouth.
Finishing the Hanging Towel Monkey
Tuck head between raised arms of hanging body. Add eyes (googly eyes, or eyes made of paper or felt) or sunglasses. Add any other decorations desired, such as the pom pom nose on this monkey. Adjust body and legs to keep center as closed as possible.
For a completely different option on how to make the head for an open-mouthed towel monkey, check out this video with Bagus from MSC Divina, who has his own way to make a towel monkey with an open mouth.
For instructions on how to fold all sorts of other towel animals, please visit My Cruise Stories Towel Animal Page.
copyright My Cruise Stories 2014
What a brilliant towel monkey LB. Love it ! ❤
What a WONDERFUL idea! I’ll bet my granddaughters would love them! Thanks!
How clever!
As a cruiser, I love the folded-towel creations … so I guess now I should try this.
Cruise ships are where I first saw the towel animals too. I learned to fold them while making posts for this blog from the videos we took on Carnival Liberty several years ago. I thought it was hard at first and my animals were a bit sloppy. After folding enough of them I got good at it and started making my own creations. The fire-breathing towel dragon was my masterpiece. Then I broke my elbow joint so now I am sort of learning how to fold them all over again, with an arm and hand that aren’t quite right. If you want to start with one that is very cute and really easy to make try the penguin.
https://mycruisestories.com/2014/04/14/how-to-fold-a-fire-breathing-towel-dragon/
https://mycruisestories.com/2013/03/02/how-to-fold-a-towel-penguin/
I prefer your monkey in brown to Bagus’s monkey in white, but he sure has the folding technique down. As for yours, the only thing it was lacking was a folded yellow towel banana.
Having a selection of towel colors does help bring the animals to life. How about a monkey with a real banana? From Carnival Liberty.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/405739_275542719174605_132759793_n.jpg?oh=011c29d408afa4f9ce4dc09e88798cf6&oe=54ED2D05&__gda__=1424976571_b7a31a1c7683509b012b2ef45af0129f
A monkey towel tourist – complete with banana!
Well done, i like the monkey! We had similar “monkey” in our cabin during the Cruise Trip… 🙂
Your monkey does look nice. The colored towels do make the animals look better than the white ones. I don’t expect the cruise ships to start using colored towels, though.
Colored towels would probably be a nightmare to their laundry department, plus white ones they can bleach between passenger uses.