Use Those Old Towels to Braid a Rug for Your Bathroom

There comes a point in every household’s life when the linen closet starts telling a story nobody asked to read. Threadbare edges. Faded colors that were once cheerful and are now just tired. Towels that have been demoted from “guest bathroom” to “gym bag” to “dog drying station” and have nowhere left to go but the trash. But before you toss them, consider this: those old towels are the perfect raw material for one of the most satisfying DIY projects you can do on a weekend. You can braid them into a beautiful, functional bathroom rug that looks intentional, holds up beautifully underfoot, and costs you almost nothing to make.

Braided rugs have a long history in American homes, going back to colonial times when nothing usable was ever wasted. Early homemakers cut strips from worn-out clothing, bedding, and linens and braided them into coiled floor coverings that were both practical and charming. The technique has never really gone away, because it works. And when you make one from old towels specifically, you get something even better than what those original crafters had access to: a thick, absorbent, soft-underfoot rug that’s perfectly suited to a bathroom floor.

This project is genuinely accessible to anyone. You don’t need a loom, a sewing machine (though one helps), or any previous crafting experience. If you can braid hair, you can braid a rug. If you can’t braid hair, you’ll learn in about five minutes and wonder what took you so long.

What Makes Old Towels Perfect for This Project

Not all fabric is created equal when it comes to braided rugs, and towels happen to check every box. They’re thick, which means your strips have real body and the braid will be substantial enough to sit firmly on the floor without sliding around. They’re made of terry cloth or cotton loops, which gives the finished rug a slightly textured, grippy surface — a genuine safety asset on wet bathroom floors. They’re absorbent by design, so your rug will do the same job a bathmat does, pulling moisture away from your feet and the floor. And because they’re already broken in, they’ll be soft from the moment you start using the rug, without any of the stiffness you sometimes get with new fabric.

Color is another advantage. Old towel collections tend to be wonderfully varied. You might have three navy blue towels, a couple of faded terracotta ones, some white hand towels that have seen better days, and a random green one you’ve had since college. All of those together, braided into a single rug, create something that looks deliberately curated. This is the magic of the project: the randomness of your linen closet becomes the design of your rug.

The more towels the better, honestly. A standard oval bathroom rug about 20 by 30 inches will use roughly four to six bath towels, depending on their thickness and how tightly you braid. If you want something larger for in front of a double vanity or to go alongside a bathtub, plan on eight to ten towels minimum.

Gathering Your Materials

Before you cut a single strip, gather everything you’ll need. Here’s what the project requires.

Old towels are the obvious starting point. Aim for a mix of sizes — bath towels, hand towels, and even washcloths if you have extras. If you don’t have enough in your own linen closet, this is an ideal project to fuel with a thrift store run. Towels at secondhand shops are usually fifty cents to a dollar each, so you can stock up without guilt. Avoid anything with mold or mildew that didn’t wash out, and skip towels with large holes right in the middle where you’d be cutting your strips, but otherwise even quite worn towels work perfectly.

You’ll also need a good pair of fabric scissors or a rotary cutter with a cutting mat. Sharp scissors make this process much easier than dull ones — this is worth emphasizing because cutting through terry cloth with a dull pair of scissors will leave you frustrated within the first few minutes.

A needle and heavy thread or a curved upholstery needle with waxed thread is essential for stitching the braid into its coiled shape. Some people use a large blunt tapestry needle threaded with yarn in a matching color, which also works beautifully. If you have access to a sewing machine, a zipper foot lets you stitch right along the edge of the coil and will speed up the finishing process considerably.

Safety pins or small binder clips are helpful for holding the braid while you work. A clipboard or a weighted object to anchor the beginning of your braid will keep things under control while your hands are busy.

Finally, an iron is useful for pressing your strips flat before you begin, which makes the braiding neater and the finished rug more uniform — though this step is optional if you’re going for a more relaxed, rustic look.

Preparing Your Strips

This is where the project really begins. Lay your towels out flat and cut them lengthwise into strips. The width you choose will determine the final character of your rug. Strips cut about two to two and a half inches wide will give you a medium-weight braid that’s very versatile. Go wider — three to four inches — for a chunkier, more textured rug with a coarser look. Go narrower — one to one and a half inches — for a finer, tighter braid that looks almost polished.

Don’t worry about cutting perfectly even strips. Towels are forgiving, and small variations in width will barely be visible in the finished rug. What matters more is consistency within a given braid: try not to have one strip that’s three inches wide and another that’s an inch wide in the same braid, or one side will always be thicker than the other.

Once you’ve cut your strips, you need to join them end to end so that you have long continuous lengths to work with. The easiest method is the diagonal seam: overlap the end of one strip with the beginning of the next at a right angle, right sides together, and sew across the diagonal. When you open it out and press it flat, the seam lies at an angle that reduces bulk and lies smoothly in the braid. If you’re not using a sewing machine, you can hand-stitch these joins with a running stitch and they’ll hold perfectly well.

Aim to prepare three long strips for each braid you plan to make. Each strip should be at least several yards long — longer is always better because you’ll be joining as you go anyway, and having to stop and join strips in the middle of an active braid can disrupt your rhythm. Wind each long strip into a loose ball or around a piece of cardboard to keep it tangle-free while you work.

The Braiding Process

Anchor the three strips together at one end. You can fold them over and clip them to a table edge, tuck them under a heavy book, or simply have someone hold them. Some people tie a loose knot at the top and clip the knot to a clipboard — this is the method most beginners find easiest.

Now braid. If you’ve ever braided hair or rope, you know exactly what to do: right over middle, left over middle, right over middle, left over middle. Keep the tension even and consistent, and try to keep the strips folded in on themselves so the raw edges are tucked inside the braid rather than visible on the surface. This takes a little practice to keep up while maintaining your rhythm, but it becomes automatic quickly.

When one of your strips runs out, add a new length using the diagonal seam method. Try to stagger your joining points so that all three strips aren’t running out at the same time — it makes for a neater braid and better structural integrity.

The length of braid you need depends on the size of rug you want to make. For a small oval rug about 18 by 24 inches, you’ll need roughly 15 to 20 feet of completed braid. For a larger rug, plan on 30 to 40 feet. It sounds like a lot, but braiding goes faster than you’d expect once you find your rhythm, and it’s deeply satisfying — the kind of project you can do while watching a movie or sitting on the porch.

Coiling and Stitching the Rug

This is where the braid becomes a rug. There are two classic shapes: oval and round. Both are equally approachable for beginners.

For a round rug, start at the center and coil the braid in a tight spiral, stitching the coils together as you go. Thread your needle with a length of heavy thread or yarn and, working from the back or the side, lace the needle through the loops of adjacent rows of braid, pulling them snugly together. The lacing stitch is traditional — it’s invisible on the front of the rug and creates a flexible join that holds up to foot traffic and washing. Work your way around and around, adding length of braid as needed, until the rug reaches the diameter you want.

For an oval rug, start at the center with a short straight length of braid — the length of this initial piece determines how long and narrow or how wide and round your oval will be. A straight center piece of about eight inches will give you a pleasantly proportioned oval. Coil the braid around this center piece, stitching as you go, turning the corners smoothly by stitching a little more loosely and letting the braid curve naturally. As with the round rug, keep working until you reach the size you want.

The stitching is the part of this project that takes the most patience, and it’s worth taking your time. Every stitch you make is an investment in a rug that stays together under real use. Go back and reinforce any spots that feel loose before you finish. When you reach the end of your braid, taper the last few inches by cutting the strips slightly narrower as you braid, so the end of the braid is thinner than the body of it. This lets you tuck and stitch the tail neatly under the last row of coils without creating a bump.

Finishing Touches

Once the rug is coiled to your satisfaction, spend a few minutes on the back. Trim any loose threads, make sure all your strip joins are lying flat, and press any sections that are buckling or uneven. A good press with a warm iron on the back of the rug does wonders for the final appearance — it relaxes the braid and helps the whole thing lie flat.

If you want to add non-slip backing, a sheet of rug gripper cut to size and stitched or glued around the edges is inexpensive and makes a real difference on tile or hardwood floors. You can also use a spray-on fabric grip for a less permanent solution.

How to Care for Your Braided Towel Rug

One of the best things about this project — beyond the cost and the satisfaction and the second life you’ve given your old linens — is how easy the finished rug is to care for. Because it’s made entirely of cotton toweling, you can machine wash it on a regular cycle in cold or warm water with your usual detergent. Tumble dry on low, and check partway through to shake it out and redistribute the mass so it dries evenly.

Over time, you may notice a few stitches working loose. This is normal and easy to fix — a few minutes with a needle and thread will restitch any gaps and the rug will be good for years more. Some of the most charming braided rugs in existence are the ones that have been repaired and added to over decades, new fabric pieced in as old sections wear through, the whole thing becoming a kind of textile history of a household’s life.

Variations and Ideas to Inspire You

Once you’ve made one braided rug, you’ll likely find yourself wanting to make more. The technique scales in every direction.

If you want a more graphic, intentional color story, sort your towels into a palette before you cut. Three towels in shades of blue, three in cream or white, and three in sandy tan will produce a rug that looks like it came from a coastal boutique. Strips of deep charcoal and white together create a classic, graphic look that suits modern bathrooms. If your household has a riot of colors with no obvious relationship, lean into it — rainbow braided rugs are joyful and genuinely beautiful.

You can also vary the texture by combining different weights of towel. Thin, older hand towels braided alongside thick bath towels create subtle variation in the texture of the braid that catches the light beautifully.

Longer rugs for hallways work with exactly the same technique. Just braid more, and keep your center piece longer when you start the oval. Runner rugs alongside a bathtub are practical and lovely.

Kitchen rugs, mudroom mats, and pet beds are all natural extensions of the same project. Once you have the braiding and coiling method in your hands, you’ll start looking at old linens entirely differently.

Why This Project Is Worth Your Weekend

There’s a particular kind of satisfaction that comes from making something durable and beautiful out of something you were about to throw away. It’s not just about the money saved, though saving money is genuinely pleasant. It’s about the rug being yours in a way that nothing purchased can quite be — chosen colors, chosen size, made by your hands on an afternoon when you had nowhere particular to be.

The bathroom is also a quietly important room to get right. It’s the first room many of us visit in the morning and the last we visit at night. A soft, warm rug underfoot when you step out of the shower is a small luxury that compounds daily. Making that rug yourself, out of towels that have served your household for years, gives it a continuity and a presence that a mass-produced bathmat simply doesn’t have.

So open the linen closet. Pull out the towels that are past their prime. Get your scissors, find a good podcast or a long film you’ve been meaning to watch, and start cutting strips. By the time the credits roll, you’ll have the beginning of something that might just be the most satisfying thing in your bathroom.