How to Make a Braided Rug: The Complete Amish Knot Rug Tutorial
There is something deeply satisfying about making something beautiful from fabric scraps you might otherwise throw away. The Amish knot rug — sometimes called a toothbrush rug, a monk’s rug, or a tabby rug — is one of the most rewarding textile crafts you can pick up, and once you learn the technique, you will find yourself eyeing old t-shirts, worn flannel sheets, and tired bath towels with a whole new appreciation.
This tutorial will walk you through every step of the process, from gathering your materials to finishing the final edge, with plenty of tips along the way to help you avoid common mistakes. Whether you want a small accent rug for a bathroom or a larger oval for your kitchen, the method scales beautifully, and the look fits right in with farmhouse, cottage, rustic, and traditional decor styles.
What Is an Amish Knot Rug?
Before we dive into the how-to, it helps to understand what makes this style of braided rug unique. Traditional braided rugs are made by plaiting three strips of fabric together into a long braid, then coiling and sewing that braid into an oval or round shape. Amish knot rugs work differently. Instead of braiding in the traditional three-strand sense, you create a series of interlocking loops using two strips of fabric and a large blunt needle called a toothbrush needle or a rug needle. The loops lock into each other as you work, creating a very sturdy, tightly woven surface that lies completely flat without any sewing or gluing.
The result has a distinctive textured look that resembles a woven or knotted pattern rather than the herringbone lines you see in classic braided rugs. Amish knot rugs are known for being extremely durable, washable, and long-lasting — exactly the kind of practical, no-waste craft that made them a staple of Amish households for generations.
Materials You Will Need
Getting your materials together is the first step, and this is also the stage where you will make your biggest decisions about color and fabric type.
Fabric: Almost any fabric can work, but knit fabrics like jersey (old t-shirts, cotton knit sheets, leggings) are especially popular because they curl inward when cut into strips, giving you a smooth, rounded strand without any raw edges to worry about. Woven fabrics like cotton, flannel, denim, or linen work too, but they will have raw edges, so you will either need to cut wider strips and fold them as you go, or press and fold them in advance. For a beginner, jersey knit is by far the most forgiving.
How much fabric? A standard bath rug measuring roughly 20 by 34 inches will use approximately two to three pounds of fabric strips, depending on the thickness of your material. A larger kitchen rug of about 24 by 36 inches may use four to five pounds. The honest answer is that it is hard to predict exactly how much you will need, so gather more than you think and sort it by color family before you start.
A toothbrush needle or rug needle: This is the tool that gives one version of the rug its name. A toothbrush needle is a large, blunt, flat needle with a big eye — often shaped a bit like an old toothbrush handle — that allows you to carry your fabric strip through the loops of the rug. You can purchase these inexpensively online or at craft stores, or you can make one from a plastic coffee stirrer or a piece of stiff plastic by carving a notch at one end to hold the fabric. Many crafters also use a large metal tapestry needle or a bent piece of wire. Any tool that lets you thread a strip of fabric and push it through a tight loop will work.
Scissors: A good sharp pair of fabric scissors will make cutting much less tedious. A rotary cutter and cutting mat can speed things up significantly if you have them.
A ruler or straight edge: For cutting even strips.
Optional — a measuring tape: Helpful for checking your rug dimensions as you work.
Preparing Your Fabric Strips
This is the step that takes the most time but is deeply meditative once you get into a rhythm.
Start by washing and drying all of your fabric. This is important for two reasons: it preshrinks the material so your finished rug will not shrink and warp the first time you wash it, and it removes any sizing or finishes that could make the fabric stiff.
Cut or tear your fabric into strips. For jersey knit, strips of about one inch wide are a good starting point. Because jersey curls on itself, a one-inch cut will produce a strand that is closer to half an inch in diameter when curled. For woven fabrics, you may want to cut strips one and a half to two inches wide so you have enough material to fold over the raw edges as you work.
The strips need to be joined end to end into long continuous lengths. For jersey fabric, the simplest joining method is a fabric knot join: cut a small slit about half an inch from the end of each strip, loop the ends through each other’s slits, and pull tight. This creates a surprisingly secure join that is nearly invisible once the rug is done. For woven fabric, you can use the same method or sew ends together on a diagonal seam to reduce bulk.
Sort your joined strips by color. Wind them into loose balls or around pieces of cardboard to keep them tangle-free as you work.
Setting Up Your Starting Chain
The Amish knot rug begins with a foundation chain that will become the center of your oval. The length of this starting chain determines the final length-to-width ratio of your rug. A longer starting chain makes a more elongated oval; a shorter chain makes a rounder, nearly circular shape.
As a general guide: to make a rug that is approximately twice as long as it is wide, make your starting chain about half the desired finished length. For example, if you want a rug that ends up about 30 inches long and 18 inches wide, start with a chain roughly 12 to 15 inches long.
Here is how to create the starting chain:
Take your first fabric strip and fold it in half to find the center. Make a loose overhand knot at the center point, leaving a loop. This is your anchor loop. Thread your needle with the working end of the strip and begin pulling it through the anchor loop from the back to the front, then creating a new loop and pulling the strip through again — essentially a single crochet chain worked with fabric instead of yarn. Continue until your chain is the length you need.
Some tutorials suggest starting with two separate strips from the very beginning. If you find the single-strip chain method confusing, you can also simply tie two strips together at their ends, fold them side by side, and begin the interlocking loop pattern immediately, working back and forth to create the foundation row. Either approach works, and you will settle into the one that makes the most intuitive sense to you after a few minutes of practice.
Working the Amish Knot Stitch
Now comes the heart of the technique. Once you have your starting chain or foundation row, you will begin to build the rug by adding rows around the outside, interlocking each new loop into the loops of the previous row.
Hold your chain or foundation row in front of you. You have two working strips — let us call them Strip A and Strip B. Thread Strip A onto your needle.
The basic motion works like this: push your needle through the last loop of the previous row from front to back, pull Strip A through to create a new loop on the front side, then bring Strip B through that new loop, pulling it snug but not too tight. Then push the needle through the next loop along, pull Strip A through again, bring Strip B through, and continue along.
When you reach the end of a straight section and need to turn a corner (at the curved ends of an oval rug), you will add extra loops into single loops of the previous row. This is how the rug grows wider rather than just longer. At the curves, you may need to work two or even three new loops into a single loop of the previous row to keep the rug lying flat. If your rug starts to cup or bowl upward, you are not adding enough extra loops at the curves. If it ruffles or ripples, you are adding too many. Adjusting your curve increases is the main skill that develops with practice, and it is genuinely easier to feel than to describe — once you have made one or two rugs, it becomes instinctive.
Continue working rounds. After a few rows, you will start to see the rug taking shape, and the woven texture will become clearly visible. Step back occasionally and lay the rug flat on a table to check that it is lying smoothly.
Color Patterns and Design Ideas
One of the most enjoyable parts of making an Amish knot rug is planning your color sequence. Because you are working with two strips at a time, you can create a wide range of patterns simply by changing which colors you use for Strip A and Strip B.
A simple two-color rug where you use the same colors throughout gives a clean, classic look with a subtle woven texture. Striped rugs are made by switching one or both strips to a new color after completing a full round. Scrappy or random rugs, where you simply join whatever fabric is next in your pile, have a charming folk-art quality and are the most traditional style — this is exactly how Amish women made them, using whatever fabric scraps were on hand.
For a more coordinated look without a lot of planning, try limiting yourself to two or three color families: for example, all blues and whites, or all warm earth tones. Even with scrappy construction, sticking to a color palette produces a cohesive, designer-looking result.
Ombre effects are possible by gradually shifting from light to dark values of the same hue as you work outward from the center. This requires a bit more organization and planning but the finished effect is stunning.
Joining New Strips and Managing Your Work
You will inevitably run out of a strip partway through a row. This is completely normal. Simply join a new strip using your knot join method and keep working. Try to stagger your joins so they do not all land in the same area, and press the knot joins to the back side of the rug as you go.
As your rug grows, it will become heavier and less easy to maneuver. Many crafters find it helpful to roll or fold the finished portion of the rug loosely as they work, holding it in their lap and working at the active edge. This makes even very large rugs manageable.
Finishing the Edge
When your rug has reached the size you want, you need to secure the final row so it does not unravel.
The cleanest finishing method is to tuck the working ends of your strips back through the loops of the previous row using your needle, essentially weaving the tails in invisibly. Bring each tail through at least three or four loops before trimming the excess, and the end will hold firmly through washing and heavy use.
Some crafters prefer to tie the final strips together in a square knot on the back side of the rug, then tuck the tails under several loops. This is slightly less elegant but equally secure.
Trim any fraying ends or loose threads close to the surface. If you used jersey fabric, the cut ends will naturally curl and blend in. If you used woven fabric, a dab of fabric glue on each trimmed end will prevent fraying.
Caring for Your Amish Knot Rug
One of the greatest advantages of this style of rug is how easy it is to care for. Rugs made from cotton jersey or woven cotton can be washed in the washing machine on a gentle cycle with cold water and tumbled dry on low, or laid flat to air dry. Avoid hot water and high dryer heat, which can shrink cotton dramatically.
Shake the rug outside occasionally to remove dust. For spot cleaning, a damp cloth and a small amount of mild dish soap work well. If the rug develops any loose loops over time, simply use your needle to work them back into position — the interlocking structure means a single loose loop rarely causes any unraveling.
A non-slip rug pad underneath is highly recommended, especially on hardwood or tile floors. Braided and knotted rugs are naturally somewhat prone to sliding, and a pad protects both the rug and anyone walking on it.
Troubleshooting Common Problems
The rug is cupping or forming a bowl shape: You are not adding enough extra loops at the curved ends. On your next round, try adding an extra loop at each curve.
The rug is ruffling or wavy: You are adding too many loops at the curves, creating excess fabric with nowhere to go. Work a round with fewer increases at the curves.
The rug is pulling to one side or becoming asymmetrical: Check that you are adding the same number of increases on each curved end. It is easy to get distracted and lose count.
Strips are breaking or fraying as you pull them through loops: Your loops may be too tight, or your fabric may be too fragile. Try working with slightly looser tension, or switch to a more durable fabric. Heavily worn areas of old sheets or t-shirts can have weak spots that are not obvious until you put tension on them.
The finished texture looks uneven: This is almost always a tension issue. Try to be consistent about how firmly you pull each loop snug. Rugs made with consistent tension look noticeably more polished than those made with varying tension, and your tension will naturally even out over the course of a project as you develop muscle memory.
Why Make a Rug This Way?
Beyond the practical appeal of transforming old fabric into something functional and beautiful, there is something genuinely meaningful about this craft. Amish knot rugs belong to a long tradition of making do, of using what you have, of seeing potential in what others discard. In a culture that tends toward disposability, sitting down with a pile of worn-out shirts and turning them into a rug your family will walk on for years carries a quiet kind of satisfaction that is hard to explain until you have experienced it.
The technique is portable — you can work on a rug in a car, on a porch, or in front of a fire. It requires no electricity, no expensive equipment, and very little investment beyond time and fabric. The rhythm of the stitch is soothing in the way that knitting and hand stitching are soothing: repetitive enough to be meditative, but with enough small decisions about color and tension to keep your hands and mind gently engaged.
Start with a small project — a bathroom rug or a doormat — and you will almost certainly find yourself planning a larger one before you have even finished. That is the nature of this craft: once you see what you can make from what you already have, it is very hard to stop.
Quick Reference: Amish Knot Rug at a Glance
To make your first Amish knot rug, choose jersey knit fabric in your preferred colors, cut it into one-inch strips, and join the strips into long continuous lengths. Create a starting chain to set the length of your oval, then build rounds by interlocking loops with two working strips and a large blunt needle. Add extra loops at the curves to keep the rug flat. When you reach your desired size, weave in the ends securely and trim any loose threads. Wash in cold water on a gentle cycle and use a non-slip pad underneath.
That is the whole method. The rest is just fabric, time, and the pleasure of making something with your own hands.
