How to Make a Rag Rug: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide
There is something deeply satisfying about making a rag rug. You take fabric that might otherwise end up in a landfill — worn-out jeans, old bed sheets, fabric scraps from past sewing projects — and you transform it into something beautiful and functional that can last for decades. Rag rugs have been made in homes for centuries, and the craft is enjoying a well-deserved revival as more people look for ways to reduce waste, decorate on a budget, and reconnect with traditional handmade skills.
Whether you are a complete beginner or someone who has dabbled in textile crafts before, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know. You will learn about the different techniques available, how to prepare your materials, and how to finish your rug so it holds together through years of daily use. By the end, you will have all the knowledge you need to make a beautiful rag rug from scratch.
What Is a Rag Rug?
A rag rug is a floor covering made by weaving, braiding, crocheting, or looping strips of fabric — traditionally scrap fabric or old clothing — into a cohesive piece. The term “rag” originally referred to worn or torn cloth, and rag rug making developed as a practical way for households to recycle textiles that were no longer useful in their original form.
Rag rugs appear in cultures all over the world, from Scandinavian woven flat-weave rugs to the braided oval rugs common in Early American homes to the looped and hooked rugs of rural Britain and New England. Each tradition developed its own techniques, tools, and aesthetic, but they all share the same basic philosophy: nothing goes to waste.
Today, rag rugs are beloved for their charm, their sustainability, and their versatility. They can be rustic and cozy, modern and geometric, or soft and pastel, depending entirely on the fabrics you choose and the technique you use.
Choosing Your Technique
Before you gather your materials, it helps to decide which rug-making method appeals to you most. The four most popular techniques for beginners are braiding, weaving on a frame loom, crocheting, and prodding (also called “proddy” or “loopy” rugs). Each has its own character and its own set of tools.
Braiding is probably the most accessible technique for absolute beginners. It requires no special equipment — just fabric strips and your hands. You braid three strands together as you would braid hair, then coil and sew the braid into a flat oval or circular shape. Braided rugs tend to be very thick and durable, making them excellent for high-traffic areas.
Frame loom weaving produces a flat, woven rug with a more structured look. You build or buy a simple rectangular loom, set up a warp of strong thread or twine, and then weave your fabric strips over and under the warp threads from side to side. This method gives you precise control over pattern and color, and the finished rug lies very flat.
Crocheting uses a large crochet hook to work fabric strips into a rug, typically starting from the center and working outward in rounds. If you already know how to crochet, this is the fastest method. Even if you don’t, the basic stitch used for rag rugs is easy to learn. Crocheted rag rugs have a lovely textured surface and a satisfying geometric look.
Prodding involves pushing short strips of fabric through a base fabric (traditionally burlap or hessian) using a tool called a prodder or a blunt pair of scissors. The loops or tufts create a thick, pile-like surface. This is a wonderful technique for making pictorial or patterned rugs because you have great control over where each color goes.
For the purposes of this guide, we will focus primarily on the braided technique and touch on the frame loom method, as these are the most popular starting points for newcomers.
What You Will Need
For a Braided Rag Rug
The materials list for braided rugs is refreshingly simple.
You will need fabric in abundance. The general rule of thumb is that you need approximately one pound of fabric for every square foot of finished rug. For a small oval rug measuring about 2 feet by 3 feet, plan on gathering around five to seven pounds of fabric. This sounds like a lot, but old clothing and bedding add up quickly. Cotton, wool, denim, and jersey knit all work beautifully. Avoid fabric with coatings, synthetics that fray excessively, or very thick materials that are difficult to fold and braid.
You will also need sharp fabric scissors or a rotary cutter and cutting mat, a large blunt needle or a special lacing needle for joining the braid, strong upholstery thread or waxed linen thread for stitching the coils together, safety pins or clips to hold your work in progress, and an iron (optional but helpful for pressing strips flat).
For a Frame Loom Woven Rug
For this technique, you will need a frame loom, which you can buy or make yourself from a simple wooden picture frame or four pieces of lumber screwed together. You will also need nails or pegs spaced evenly along the top and bottom of the frame to hold the warp threads, a ball of strong warp thread (cotton twine or jute works well), fabric strips prepared from your scrap fabrics, and a shuttle or a piece of cardboard to help you weave the strips through.
Preparing Your Fabric
No matter which technique you choose, preparing your fabric strips properly is one of the most important steps. The quality of your preparation directly affects how smooth and even your finished rug will look and feel.
Start by washing all of your fabric. Pre-washing removes any sizing or finishes from new fabric and preshrinks everything so your rug doesn’t distort after its first cleaning. If you are using old clothing or household textiles, washing them ensures they are clean and that any color bleeding happens before you start, not after.
Next, remove any hardware from clothing — buttons, zippers, hooks, and elastic should all come out. They create lumps in the finished rug and can damage your tools.
Now cut or tear your fabric into strips. The width you choose depends on your technique and the thickness of the fabric. For braiding, strips between one and two inches wide work well for medium-weight cotton and denim. Thinner fabrics like jersey or voile can be cut wider, around two to three inches, because they fold down smaller. Very thick fabrics like heavy denim or upholstery material should be cut to about three-quarters of an inch.
Tearing fabric along the grain (rather than cutting) actually produces a nice clean strip with slightly finished edges that fray less, and it is much faster than cutting. Test a small piece to see if your fabric tears cleanly before committing to this approach.
Once you have your strips cut, you have two choices: leave them loose and join them as you go, or prepare them in advance by folding the edges in and pressing them with an iron. Pressing the strips so the raw edges fold to the center (like making bias tape) gives you a tidier, stronger braid with fewer fraying edges. It takes more time upfront but produces a noticeably more polished finished rug.
Another option is to store your strips in separate containers or bags organized by color or value (light, medium, dark). This makes it much easier to plan color patterns as you work.
How to Make a Braided Rag Rug
Step One: Start Your Braid
Take three strips of fabric and knot or safety-pin them together at one end. Anchor this end somewhere secure — clamp it to a table, pin it to a sofa cushion, or loop it around a doorknob — so you can braid with consistent tension.
Arrange your three strips so they hang side by side. Cross the right strip over the center strip. Then cross the left strip over the new center strip. Continue in this rhythm: right over center, left over center. Keep your tension even and consistent. As you braid, fold the raw edges of each strip inward so they are hidden inside the braid. This takes a little practice but quickly becomes automatic.
When one strip runs out, join a new one by folding the end of the old strip and the beginning of the new strip together and stitching or knotting them securely. Try to stagger your joins so they don’t all happen in the same section of the braid, which would create a lumpy spot.
Step Two: Coil and Lace the Braid
Once you have a braid about twelve inches long, you can begin coiling it into the shape of your rug. For an oval rug, start by folding a length of braid back on itself (the length of this initial fold determines how long the center of your oval will be — a 6-inch fold creates a rounder rug, a 12-inch fold creates a more elongated oval). Then begin coiling the remaining braid around the outside of this center, keeping the braid flat.
Use a blunt needle threaded with strong thread to lace adjacent rows of braid together. Push the needle under a loop on one braid and then under the corresponding loop on the next braid, working your way around the rug. Pull the thread firmly but not so tightly that the rug buckles. The lacing should be nearly invisible from the top of the rug.
For a circular rug, simply coil the braid in a tight spiral from the very beginning.
Step Three: Continue Building the Rug
Keep braiding and coiling, lacing each new row to the previous one as you go. The rug will grow outward with each round. To keep an oval rug lying flat, you will need to ease the braid slightly around the curved ends — adding a tiny bit of slack prevents the rug from curling up at the edges. If your rug starts to dome or bowl upward, you are pulling the braid too tight around the curves. If it ruffles or ripples, your braid is too loose in those sections.
Changing color patterns is as simple as switching out one or more of your braiding strips at any time. You can create bold stripes, gradual color shifts, or random scrappy looks depending on how you manage your fabric.
Step Four: Finishing the Rug
When your rug has reached the size you want, finish the braid by gradually tapering the strips. Instead of cutting each strip straight across (which creates an abrupt, bulky end), trim each strip so it gets progressively narrower over the last six inches. This allows the braid to taper naturally to a flat end. Tuck the tapering braid end underneath the previous row and stitch it securely in place, hiding the end so it blends seamlessly with the rest of the rug.
How to Make a Woven Rag Rug on a Frame Loom
Setting Up the Warp
Space nails or pegs evenly across the top and bottom of your frame, about half an inch apart. Tie your warp thread to the first nail at the bottom, stretch it up to the corresponding nail at the top, loop around it, come back down to the next nail, and continue until the entire frame is strung with vertical warp threads. Keep the tension even and firm throughout.
Weaving
Thread your fabric strip onto a shuttle or a piece of cardboard. Push the shuttle over the first warp thread, under the second, over the third, and so on, all the way across the frame. Push the woven strip down toward the bottom of the frame. On your return, go under the first warp thread, over the second, under the third — the opposite of your first pass. Continue weaving back and forth, pushing each new strip down firmly against the previous one. Leave a small loop of fabric at each selvedge (the sides of the weaving) rather than pulling the strip completely flat; this prevents the edges from drawing in over time.
Join new strips by overlapping the end of the old strip with the beginning of the new one for an inch or two within a row. The weaving holds the overlap in place.
Finishing
When the frame is full, carefully remove the rug from the loom by lifting the warp loops off the nails. Tie adjacent warp threads together in pairs at both ends to prevent the weaving from unraveling, then trim them to form a fringe or tuck them back into the weaving and stitch them down for a clean edge.
Caring for Your Rag Rug
Rag rugs are wonderfully practical because they are generally easy to clean. Most can be shaken out, vacuumed, or machine-washed on a gentle cycle in cold water. Always check the fiber content of your fabrics before washing — wool rugs in particular should be washed gently to avoid felting. Air drying flat is the safest approach for any rag rug, as heat from a dryer can cause braids or weaves to distort.
To prevent slipping, place a non-slip rug pad or a piece of rubberized shelf liner underneath your rug. This is especially important for rugs placed in kitchens, bathrooms, or at the top of staircases.
Rotate your rug periodically so that foot traffic and sunlight fade the fabric evenly over time. Rag rugs are not particularly fragile, but a little attention goes a long way toward keeping them looking beautiful for years.
Tips for Choosing Colors and Fabrics
The fabric choices you make are what give a rag rug its personality. A rug made entirely from denim scraps will look tailored and cool-toned. A rug made from colorful cotton shirts will feel cheerful and folksy. A rug made from soft wool sweaters and blankets will feel luxurious underfoot and cozy in winter.
If you want a coordinated look, pull fabrics in two or three colors and alternate them in a regular pattern. If you love the scrappy, spontaneous aesthetic of traditional rag rugs, simply mix everything together and let the rug surprise you as it grows.
Value contrast — the difference between light and dark — matters more than specific color when it comes to how visually interesting a rug looks. Even a rug made from fabrics in the same color family will have depth and texture if some pieces are much lighter or darker than others.
Don’t be afraid to experiment. One of the great gifts of rag rug making is that the materials cost very little, which means the stakes are low and the freedom to play is high.
Why Make a Rag Rug?
Beyond the practical benefits of recycling fabric and creating something useful for your home, rag rug making offers something harder to quantify. It is a slow, rhythmic craft that rewards patience and attention. Sitting with a growing braid or a developing weave, watching a pile of old fabric transform into something beautiful and new — it is a genuinely meditative experience.
There is also the satisfaction of making something built to last. A well-made rag rug can survive decades of use. It carries the history of the fabrics it was made from — the shirt your child outgrew, the curtains from a previous home, the quilt that finally wore too thin to keep on the bed — and weaves those fragments into a new life.
If you have never made one before, start small. A little round rug no bigger than a dinner plate is enough to learn the technique. Then make a bathroom mat. Then a welcome mat for your front door. Before long you may find, as generations of rag rug makers before you have, that this is a craft you keep coming back to for the rest of your life.
