How To Make A DIY Rag Rug Using Old Bedding
There is something deeply satisfying about turning worn-out sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers into something beautiful and useful. A rag rug made from old bedding is one of those rare craft projects that costs almost nothing, produces zero waste, and results in a finished piece you can genuinely be proud of. Whether you are a seasoned crafter or picking up a creative hobby for the first time, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know to make your own rag rug from start to finish.
Before you dive in, it helps to understand why rag rugs have been made for centuries. They originated out of necessity — fabric was expensive, nothing was wasted, and creative homemakers found ways to breathe new life into worn textiles. Today, the motivation is less about necessity and more about sustainability, individuality, and the pleasure of making something with your hands. Old bedding is a particularly wonderful source material because sheets tend to be large, soft, and available in a wide range of colors and patterns. A single set of queen-size sheets can yield enough strips to make a substantial rug.
What You Will Need
Getting started requires very little in the way of tools or materials, which is part of what makes this project so accessible.
For materials, you will need old bedding — sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers, or any combination of these. Cotton and cotton-blend fabrics work best because they are easy to cut, durable underfoot, and machine washable once your rug is finished. Avoid anything too thick or stiff, like heavy canvas or denim, especially if you are a beginner. Thin, worn-in cotton sheets are ideal. Gather as much as you can, because you will use more than you expect. A standard bath mat-sized rug (roughly 20 by 30 inches) typically requires around two to three queen-size flat sheets.
For tools, depending on which method you choose, you may need a large crochet hook (size N or P works well for chunky fabric strips), a blunt tapestry needle, a loom or braiding board if you prefer a more structured approach, sharp fabric scissors or a rotary cutter and cutting mat, a ruler or measuring tape, and a safety pin or two to hold your work in place while you braid.
You will also want to choose your method before you begin. There are three main techniques for making a rag rug: braiding, crocheting, and weaving. This guide covers all three so you can pick the one that suits your skills, tools, and patience level.
Preparing Your Bedding: How to Cut Fabric Strips
No matter which method you choose, the preparation process starts the same way: cutting your fabric into long, continuous strips.
Wash and dry all your bedding before you begin. Old fabric can harbor dust, and washing will also pre-shrink the material so your finished rug does not pucker or warp later.
Once your bedding is clean, lay a flat sheet out on a large surface like a dining table or clean floor. Trim off any hems or seams around the edges and set those aside — they can be used for filler material or discarded.
Now you are going to cut the sheet into strips. For braided and crocheted rugs, a strip width of about one to one and a half inches works well. For woven rugs, you might go narrower, around three quarters of an inch. Using a rotary cutter and a ruler on a cutting mat will give you the most precise and efficient cuts, but sharp scissors work just fine if you do not have those tools.
Here is the trick for getting long, continuous strips without a lot of knots: rather than cutting straight across from edge to edge, you are going to spiral-cut the fabric. Fold the sheet in half lengthwise, and make cuts from the folded edge toward the open edge, stopping about an inch before you reach the open edge. Each cut should be parallel to the one before it, spaced about an inch apart. When you unfold the sheet, you will have a series of cuts that almost reach the edges on either side. Then, on a diagonal, you connect the cuts so the whole thing unfurls into one long continuous strip. This technique sounds more complicated than it is — once you try it, it becomes intuitive quickly.
Alternatively, you can simply cut straight strips and join them together as you go by tying a simple overhand knot at the end of each strip, or by using a folded interlocking join. The folded join is nearly invisible and produces a professional-looking result: cut a small slit near the end of each strip, thread the end of the new strip through the slit of the old one, then pass the other end of the new strip through its own slit and pull tight.
Roll your cut strips into loose balls as you go. This keeps everything tidy and makes it much easier to work with later.
Method One: The Braided Rag Rug
Braiding is the most beginner-friendly method and requires no special tools at all. The finished result is a classic, sturdy rug with a traditional look that suits farmhouse, country, and cottage-style interiors beautifully.
Start by gathering three strips of fabric. These can be the same color for a uniform look, or three different colors if you want stripes in your braid. Knot the three strips together at one end, and secure that knot to something stable — you can pin it to your jeans, tape it to the table, or loop it over a door handle. The important thing is that you have tension to work against.
Braid the three strips together just as you would braid hair, keeping the tension even and the strips flat rather than twisted. The flatter your strips lie in the braid, the more even and attractive your finished rug will be. Every few inches, give the braid a gentle tug to check for consistency.
When you run low on one strip, join a new one using the folded interlocking method described above, making sure the join falls in the middle of the braid rather than on an outer edge where it might be visible.
Once you have braided a length of about three feet, you can begin coiling. For an oval rug, start by coiling your braid tightly, folding the first length back on itself to form the center of the oval. Use a blunt tapestry needle and a long strand of sturdy thread or thin fabric strip to lace adjacent loops of the braid together as you coil. Do this by passing the needle between the loops of neighboring braid sections, stitching them together snugly but not so tightly that the rug buckles.
Keep braiding and coiling until the rug is as large as you want. When you reach the end, taper your strips by cutting each one at a slight diagonal so the braid narrows gradually. Tuck the tapered ends under the final coil and stitch them firmly in place.
A braided rug this way can be made into any shape. For a round rug, begin by coiling from the very start rather than making a straight center section. For a rectangle, make a longer straight center before you begin coiling the edges.
Method Two: The Crocheted Rag Rug
Crocheting a rag rug gives you enormous flexibility in terms of size, shape, and pattern. If you already know basic crochet stitches, you can make a rag rug in an afternoon. If you have never crocheted before, the slip stitch and single crochet are easy enough to learn from a five-minute video and will carry you through the entire project.
Use a large crochet hook — size N (9mm) or P (10mm) is ideal for fabric strips of about an inch wide. Thicker strips or tightly woven fabric may require an even larger hook.
To begin, make a slip knot with your fabric strip and chain the desired number of stitches for the width of your rug. For a standard bathmat of about 20 inches wide, you would chain approximately 25 to 30 stitches, depending on your tension.
From there, single crochet into each chain, turn, and continue in rows. This simple back-and-forth pattern produces a flat, sturdy rug. As you work, join new strips using the same interlocking technique described earlier, and keep your joins on the underside of the work if possible.
If you prefer a round or oval rug, you can work in the round instead. For a round rug, chain four and join into a ring, then crochet in ever-expanding rounds. For an oval rug, chain a longer foundation and crochet around the outside of the chain, increasing at both ends of each round.
One of the great pleasures of crocheting a rag rug is the opportunity for color play. If you are working with a collection of old bedding in different colors, you can alternate strips deliberately to create stripes, or mix them randomly for a cheerful, scrappy look. Some crafters sort their fabric by color family and plan a gradient or color-blocked design. Whatever approach you take, keep a little extra of each color handy in case you need to go back and add rows.
Method Three: The Woven Rag Rug
Weaving produces the flattest, most uniform rag rug, and it is an excellent option if you enjoy a structured, methodical process. You do not need a full loom — a simple frame loom made from a picture frame and a few nails or screws will work beautifully for a small rug.
To set up your frame loom, hammer small nails along the top and bottom edges of a picture frame, spaced about half an inch apart. String your warp thread — this is the vertical thread that runs through the entire rug — back and forth between the top and bottom nails, keeping the tension even and firm. Use a strong cotton string or twine for the warp, not fabric strips, as the warp needs to hold the whole structure together.
To weave, cut your fabric strips slightly narrower than for the other methods — about half an inch to three quarters of an inch wide. Starting at the bottom of the frame, weave a strip over and under alternating warp threads across the full width, then push it down to the bottom. For the next row, reverse the pattern — where you went over before, go under, and vice versa. This over-under pattern locks the strips together and creates a stable fabric.
Use a fork, a wide-tooth comb, or a purpose-made weaving shuttle to press each row down firmly as you go. The tighter you pack the rows, the denser and more durable your rug will be.
Join new strips by overlapping the ends of the old and new strips in the middle of a row, leaving about an inch of overlap. Tuck the ends under as you continue weaving and they will be locked in place.
When your rug is as long as you want, carefully slide it off the nails. Tie off the warp ends in pairs using a simple knot pulled tight against the edge of the weaving. Trim the tails to a uniform length of about an inch or fold them back into the rug and stitch them down if you prefer a cleaner edge.
Finishing and Caring for Your Rug
Once your rug is complete, give it a good look all over. Clip any stray thread ends, check that all joins are secure, and lay it flat to check for evenness. If it has any slight buckling, you can block it by dampening it slightly with a spray bottle, pulling it gently into shape, and leaving it to dry flat.
For the underside, consider adding a non-slip backing. You can buy non-slip rug underlays and cut them to size, or apply a thin layer of fabric puff paint in a grid pattern across the back of the rug and let it dry completely. Either approach will prevent the rug from sliding on hard floors.
Most cotton rag rugs are machine washable, which is one of their greatest practical advantages. Wash on a gentle cycle with cold water and mild detergent. Tumble dry on low, or lay flat to dry to preserve the shape. Avoid high heat, which can cause the fabric to shrink unevenly.
Rag rugs become more beautiful with use. The fabric softens further, the colors mellow slightly, and the rug develops a character that no manufactured product can replicate.
Tips for Success
Working with even tension throughout your project is one of the most important skills to develop. Uneven tension is the main reason rugs curl at the edges, buckle in the middle, or look lumpy. If you notice your rug starting to cup upward, it means your tension is too tight; if it is ruffling and flaring outward, it is too loose. Adjust as you go rather than waiting until the end.
Keep your color combinations in mind from the beginning. Lay your fabric strips out together before you start to get a sense of how the colors interact. Some combinations that look great individually can clash when placed side by side, while others that seem unlikely on their own create unexpectedly lovely results when worked together.
Do not underestimate how much fabric you will need. It is always better to have too much than too little, especially if you are using a specific color of bedding that you may not be able to replicate. Collect every scrap of similar fabric you can before starting.
Finally, enjoy the process. Rag rug making is repetitive in the best possible way — it is meditative, rhythmic work that quiets the mind and produces something tangible and lasting. It is also a wonderful project to work on over several evenings, picking it up and setting it down as time allows.
Ideas and Inspiration
Once you have made one rug, it is difficult to stop. The same techniques can be applied at larger scales to make statement rugs for living rooms, or at smaller scales for trivets, bath mats, pot holders, and even wall hangings. You can create designs with intentional color blocking, stripes, concentric circles, or completely random scrappy patterns. Each rug tells the story of its fabric — you might find yourself remembering which sheets came from which bed, or which duvet cover was a Christmas gift, as you work the strips into something new.
Rag rug making is also a wonderful way to connect with other crafters. Online communities dedicated to fiber arts and zero-waste crafting are full of makers sharing their projects, troubleshooting tips, and creative ideas. If you share your finished rug, you may well inspire someone else to dig out their own old bedding and start cutting.
Making a DIY rag rug from old bedding is one of the most rewarding craft projects you can undertake. It costs almost nothing, diverts textile waste from landfill, produces a genuinely useful and beautiful object, and connects you to a long tradition of resourceful, creative making. All it takes is some old sheets, a little time, and a willingness to begin.
