Use Those Old Towels to Braid a Rug for Your Bathroom

There comes a point in every home’s life when the towel drawer holds more nostalgia than usefulness. Those once-fluffy bath towels, now thin and scratchy after years of faithful service, feel too worn to put out for guests but too sentimental — or simply too bulky — to toss in the trash. Before you bag them up for donation or stuff them under the sink for “someday,” consider giving them an entirely new life on your bathroom floor. Braided rugs made from old towels are soft underfoot, surprisingly durable, completely washable, and cost you absolutely nothing if you already have the materials on hand.

This project has been around for generations, and for good reason. Braiding fabric scraps into rugs is one of the oldest forms of home textile craft in North America, with roots going back to colonial households where nothing was wasted. Today it fits perfectly into the modern upcycling mindset, letting you skip the synthetic bath mat at the big-box store and create something genuinely unique instead. Your old green towels from 2008, the set of mismatched hand towels that never quite coordinated — all of it becomes raw material for something beautiful.

Here is everything you need to know to make your own braided towel rug, from preparing your materials through the final stitch.

Why Towels Are Perfect for Braided Rugs

Not all fabric braids equally. Thin cotton quilting fabric, for example, can produce a lovely flat braid, but it lacks the cushion underfoot that makes a bathroom rug satisfying to step onto first thing in the morning. Towels, on the other hand, are made from terry cloth — a looped, absorbent weave that retains loft even after cutting. When you braid strips of old towel together, the resulting rope is thick, springy, and wonderfully soft.

Towels also have a couple of practical advantages. Their edges roll inward naturally when cut into strips, which reduces fraying and means you don’t need to hem every single piece before you begin. The cotton content makes them easy to wash once your rug is finished, an important consideration for a bathroom floor that sees wet feet every day. And because most households retire towels in a range of colors, you often have natural material for a striped or variegated braid without needing to plan anything in advance.

A standard bath towel, roughly 27 by 54 inches, yields a surprising amount of strip when cut into 2-inch-wide pieces along its length. Even a worn, threadbare center section can usually be cut around, leaving you with perfectly usable strips from the borders.

What You Will Need

The supply list for this project is refreshingly short.

You will need old towels, obviously — anywhere from three to ten depending on how large you want the finished rug to be. A small bathroom accent rug about 20 inches in diameter requires roughly three to four standard bath towels. A larger oval rug closer to 24 by 36 inches will need six or more, depending on their thickness.

You will also need sharp fabric scissors. This is the one place where quality matters. Cutting through terry cloth with dull scissors is frustrating and tiring, and uneven cuts make for uneven braiding. If you have a rotary cutter and self-healing mat, those work beautifully here and speed up the prep work considerably.

A large blunt needle — a tapestry needle or a curved upholstery needle — is essential for stitching the coiled braid together. A regular sewing needle is too small to push through thick braided terry, and you will spend more time fighting the needle than working the rug.

Strong thread completes the list. Heavy-duty upholstery thread, linen thread, or even thin twine in a color close to your towels works well. Some crafters use strips of the towel itself as thread, which is a lovely low-waste option as long as the strip is thin enough to pass through the needle’s eye and pull through without bunching.

A safety pin or large binder clip is helpful for anchoring your braid while you work, and a flat surface — a table or the floor — where you can periodically lay the rug flat to check that it isn’t curling up at the edges.

Preparing Your Towels

Start by washing all of your towels if they haven’t been recently laundered. This preshrinks the fabric so the finished rug won’t warp the first time it goes through the wash.

Once they’re clean and dry, cut off any thick hems along the top and bottom edges of each towel if they are significantly heavier than the rest of the fabric. These hemmed edges can create lumpy sections in the braid, so it’s usually better to discard them or set them aside for a different use.

Now cut each towel into long strips. The ideal width for a bathroom rug braid is between 1.5 and 2.5 inches. Narrower strips produce a tighter, flatter braid with less cushion; wider strips create a fluffier, chunkier braid that feels more luxurious underfoot. For most purposes, 2 inches is a reliable starting point.

Cut lengthwise — that is, parallel to the long dimension of the towel — to get the longest possible strips. Each strip from a standard bath towel will be about 54 inches long before joining. You can cut across the width instead if that’s easier for some reason, but you’ll end up with many more short pieces to join together.

To join strips end to end into a continuous length, lay two strips at a right angle, right sides together, overlapping the ends by about half an inch. Sew across the diagonal with a few stitches by hand or machine, then trim the corner and press or finger-press the seam. This diagonal join distributes the bulk and lies flatter in the finished braid than a straight seam would. You want each working strand to be roughly three to five feet long when you begin — long enough to braid comfortably without constantly attaching new pieces, but not so long that you spend the whole project untangling a rope.

Sort your strips by color before you begin. If you want a planned striped effect, you’ll want three strands of coordinating colors braiding together consistently. If you want a more random, scrappy look, you can mix freely as you add new lengths to each strand.

Learning the Braid

If you have ever braided hair or made a friendship bracelet, you already know the technique. Take three strands and anchor them at one end. A safety pin through all three ends pinned to the arm of a sofa works well, as does tying them to a doorknob. Bring the right strand over the center strand, so right becomes center. Then bring the left strand over the new center strand. Right, center, left, center — repeat. That’s the entire technique.

The important thing with fabric braiding is to maintain consistent tension. Pull each strand firmly but not so tightly that the braid buckles or the fabric distorts. After every few crossings, run your thumb and finger down the length of the braid to smooth it out and make sure the strands are lying flat against each other without twisting on themselves.

As you run out of length on one strand, join a new strip using the diagonal seam method described above. Try to stagger your joins so that all three strands aren’t gaining new length at the same point in the braid — this keeps the braid uniform in thickness.

Keep braiding until you have a continuous rope that’s long enough to begin coiling. For most rug sizes, you’ll want to have several feet of braid before you start stitching, though some people prefer to coil and stitch as they go from the very beginning.

Coiling and Stitching the Rug

The shape of your finished rug is determined by how you start the coil. For an oval rug — the most practical shape for in front of a tub or toilet — make a straight center section first. Fold the first several inches of braid back on itself in a straight line about six to eight inches long, then begin curving the remaining braid around this straight center. As the coil grows outward, it naturally forms an oval.

For a round rug, simply start coiling from the very beginning, curling the braid into a tight circle from the first inch.

As you coil, stitch the adjacent rows together using your tapestry needle and heavy thread. Work from the back of the rug, passing the needle through loops on adjacent rows of braid to lace them together. Some crafters use a simple whip stitch; others prefer a lacing technique that passes through corresponding loops on neighboring rows, pulling them snug without visible thread on the front surface. Either approach works fine as long as the stitches are close enough together — roughly every inch — to keep the rows from separating during use.

Every few minutes, lay the rug flat on the floor and step back to look at it. It should lie perfectly flat without curling up at the edges. If it starts to dome upward in the center, you’re pulling the braid too tightly as you coil. If the edges ruffle outward like a lettuce leaf, you’re allowing too much slack in the outer rows. Both problems are fixable by adjusting your tension. If the shape has gone badly wrong, you can simply uncoil back to the last flat section and redo it — the stitching comes out easily before it’s been walked on.

Finishing the Rug

When your rug has reached the size you want, it’s time to finish the outer edge. Taper the final few inches of braid by gradually trimming the strips narrower as you approach the end, so the last section of braid reduces smoothly in thickness. This prevents a visible bump where the braid terminates. Tuck the tapered end under the adjacent row on the back of the rug and stitch it down firmly. If you want extra security, you can add a few stitches through the front edge as well, hiding the thread in the texture of the terry cloth.

Trim any loose threads and inspect the back of the rug for any spots where the stitching looks thin. Reinforce as needed.

Caring for Your Braided Towel Rug

One of the best things about this project is that the finished rug is entirely washable. Toss it in the washing machine on a gentle cycle with cold water, and tumble dry on low or hang it outdoors. The terry cloth strips may shed slightly the first time or two, which is normal. Avoid high heat in the dryer, which can tighten the stitching and cause the rug to pucker.

If your rug slides on tile or hardwood, place a non-slip rug pad underneath, available at any home goods store in cut-to-fit rolls. Alternatively, you can apply lines of puff paint or silicone caulk to the back of the rug in a grid pattern, let them dry fully, and have a DIY non-slip backing.

With basic care, a braided towel rug holds up for years. If a section eventually loosens, it’s simple to restitch. And if the whole thing wears out in another decade, you’ll probably have a fresh supply of worn-out towels ready to start the next one.

Tips for Making the Most of Your Materials

Color planning is worth a few minutes of thought before you start cutting. Towels that seem mismatched on a shelf can look surprisingly cohesive when cut into strips and braided together, because the texture of the terry cloth softens the transitions between colors. If you’re uncertain, braid a test section about a foot long and coil it loosely on the bathroom floor to see how it looks in context.

If you want a more polished, coordinated look, choose one neutral strand — white, gray, or cream — and let it run through the entire braid alongside two colors. The neutral acts as a unifying thread that keeps even bold color combinations from looking chaotic.

Washcloths and hand towels can be incorporated alongside bath towels. They simply produce thinner strips, which you can use for accent rows or braid three together on their own for a finer-textured section of rug.

If you run out of towels before the rug is as large as you want, old T-shirts and cotton bedsheets can be cut into strips and braided in seamlessly. The texture will differ slightly from the terry cloth, but the result is often interesting rather than jarring — a little variation in texture adds visual depth.

Don’t feel limited to the bathroom, either. The same technique produces beautiful rugs for mudrooms, kitchens, and entryways. A large oval rug made from a whole box of worn household linens can anchor a living room seating area and become a genuine piece of folk art in the process.

The Deeper Satisfaction of Making Something From Nothing

There’s something genuinely satisfying about starting with a pile of worn-out textiles and ending with something functional and attractive. The braided rug tradition endures across centuries precisely because it makes such efficient and honest use of materials that have already lived a full life. Each strip in the braid represents years of household service — the towel that was there for every bath, every illness, every bleach-spattered cleaning day. Working it into something new closes a loop that feels complete in a way that throwing it away never does.

The project is also forgiving in a way that many crafts aren’t. There are no precise measurements to worry about, no gauge swatches to knit, no patterns to follow perfectly. Each rug ends up slightly different from the last, shaped by the specific towels and strips that went into it. If your braiding tension varies from session to session, the rug simply has a little texture to it. If you run out of one color and substitute another midway through, it looks intentional. The irregularity is the point.

If you’ve been holding onto a drawer full of towels that are too far gone for the guest bathroom but too bulky for the trash, this is the sign you’ve been waiting for. Pull them out, grab your scissors, and spend an afternoon making something that will be underfoot every morning for years to come. The floor of your bathroom has never looked — or felt — better.