How to fold a fitted sheet so it lays nice and flat in your linen cupboard. I know. Crumpling it into a ball is easier. And more artistic. True. But if you live in a house with very little storage space, learning how to fold your fitted sheets properly will help you regain some room and sanity.
Yes. It's true. I tackled the greatest puzzle known to mankind. A puzzle more intriguing than the great pyramids, more mysterious than Stonehenge and more frustrating than the success of anyone who became rich and famous for having a (mediocre at that) sex tape.
How to fold a fitted sheet.
Several years ago I spent 2 months in training for this moment. I experimented, investigated and scoured the Internet for every folding a fitted sheet technique possible. I ate properly, got plenty of rest and drank 8 glasses of water a day. The result?
I gained 4 pounds, and peed a lot.
In between eating and peeing I figured out not only the easiest way to fold a fitted sheet, but also the technique that was the easiest to learn. I tested this technique by making my mother watch me do it once.
I then handed Betty the ceremonial fitted sheet and asked her to do what she just watched me do. It was a success. An actual success.
The BIG mistake people make when folding a fitted sheet is not sticking their hands into the corners from the proper direction.
The other big mistake people make is trying to just guess how to do it. You can't guess. You need to learn how to do it, memorize how to do it, then force other people to learn how to do it.
That's just the way it is.
I've included step by step instructions on how to fold a fitted sheet, but honestly, watching the video below will be the fastest way for you to learn. You just need a fitted sheet and a flat surface to fold the sheet on.
These instructions are for people who are right handed, but if you're left handed just - well you'll know what to do. Just reverse which hand you're using. You'll start off on the top two corners on the long side of the sheet. Ready?
How to Fold a Fitted Sheet.
How to fold a fitted sheet so it lays flat.
Materials
- 1 fitted sheet with partial or full elastic around it.
Instructions
- Hold the sheet so the wrong side (with the seams) is facing away from you and the right side, is toward you.
- Put your hand inside one corner (your hand will be touching the RIGHT side). Put your other hand in the opposite corner (your hand will also be touching the RIGHT side). You want your hands in the corners that are the length of the sheet. Not the width.
- Move your hands together and flip the corner that is on your left hand over your right hand. They'll be nestled together now on your right hand with your left hand free.
- Move everything to your left hand again.
- Run your right hand down the portion of the sheet closest to your body and find the corner.
- Slip your hand into the corner like before with your hand touching the WRONG (seam side) of the fabric. Stick that corner underneath the other corners on your left hand.
- Run your right hand down the sheet again until you find the final corner but this time stick your hand in the corner so it's touching the RIGHT side of the fabric. (the side without the seam). Stick that corner underneath the other corners on your left hand like before.
- Your sheet is now pretty much folded. Lay it on a flat surface and adjust it until it's a nice square. Fold in half, then fold in thirds. Done!
Notes
So the order your hands go into corners is right side, right side, wrong side, right side.
How to Fold A Fitted Sheet Part II
Yes, there are more ways to do this. Yes, they all work. But this one is the easiest to teach, the easiest to learn and the easiest to remember. I want you all to go and fold a fitted sheet. RIGHT NOW. Or at your earliest convenience as long as that's right now. Then report back!
The funny thing is - I don't use fitted sheets anymore. I use 2 flat sheets. A tip taught to me by Tricia Rose of Rough Linen.
To do this just cover your mattress with a flat sheet and tuck it all in tight. Then add your regular top sheet as you normally do. Unless you don't use a top sheet in which case there's nothing normal about you at all.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I have a pyramid to finish building. (I completed the sex tape last year and figuring out Stonehenge seems like more of a summer project)
Update: For everyone wondering if this technique works as well for sheets with elastic all the way around. I tested it. Works perfectly!
Barbie
In my younger years I worked for a hotel in Santa Cruz and sometimes in the laundry room folding sheets....I have never seen a sheet folded "this" perfectly. Very good job Karen....especially the dance moves....It would be so awesome if Paula Abdul watched your video and herself learned how to fold a fitted sheet.
Nicole2
I'm glad that I'm not the only one struggling with learning this process. I first learned with Martha's Homekeeping Handbook and still didn't perfect it. With this video, I think I can get closer. I love to look at a nicely organized linen closet. It makes me happy. I'm sad that way.
Alexandra
Way to fold that...
WAIT.
STEP BALL CHANGE.
...fitted sheet.
Karen
:) Jazz handsssss. ~ karen
Jules
your video is perfect Karen- great instruction- even on the dance moves! I remember my mother telling me how to do it this way - way back when. Fortunately for me, my husband does most of the laundry- and he rolls them into a coordinated ball in our linen closet..but I don't care..I hate laundry so I let him do it that way
Emily
That was absolutely amazing - you put Martha Stewart to shame! Thank you for sharing this, I usually just roll mine b/c I thought it was impossible to fold them flat (unless you're a machine). Side note - I wish they did exercise videos from behind, they would be so much easier to follow.
Melissa
That was amazing, Karen. I don't have time to try this before I go to work today but I will definitely try this later!
Hopefully this video will help stem the tide of tragedies related to fitted sheets:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-reveals-majority-of-suicides-occur-while-try,27286/
marilyn
you crack me up..can't say i was running to fold a fitted sheet but the next time i do have to fold one i will give it the old college try..
Julee
I wonder if I can convince my husband to watch this. He's master of the laundry until sheets are involved. Then intimidating law enforcement man becomes a big, fat chicken. (No offense to your chickens.) He's not afraid of guns, but he is afraid of the fitted sheet. He'll likely be more comfortable learning the step, ball change part of this video.
my honest answer
SUCCESS!
Violet
One of my best friends has been helping me as a personal assistant for years. Random chores, errands, dog walking, whatever I happen to need help with on days she comes. She used to fold fitted sheets perfectly into squares that came out the exact same size as the flat sheets. A few years ago, she suffered a brain aneurysm. She's recovered, thankfully, but has some residual problems as a result (for instance, she has some blind spots in one eye and her coordination isn't what it used to be). After she got better, I asked her to show me how she folded fitted sheets because I always envied how perfectly they came out, and she can't remember how she did it! It's destined to remain an unsolved mystery like the lost secret of Stonehenge or Easter island or something! If she'd only had the foresight to make a how-to video, it could have saved the world and there would be no more wars or famine and and life would be all cotton candy clouds and flying pink unicorns, but now it's lost to us forever! Now her folded fitted sheets look like the rest of us mortals' — a mass of fabric bunched into a wonky blobby wad.
Gayla T
I certainly hope you did not do away with Sheet Folding 101. That, my dear, needs to go into the annuls of sheet folding history right beside Lucille Ball's teaching tape on making chocolates. The chocolate makers had nothing to benefit from as the sheet makers did not in your case but the day will come when people who watch that old Lucy show will turn to one another with tears in their eyes and say, "That was good but you should have seen Karen fold sheets." Instructional videos are a dime a dozen but high class, sophisticated humor is a rare commodity.
kate
Very, very nice - Please, now I want to see the video demonstrating how to fold the fitted sheet that has ELASTIC all the way around it! -- Thanks ahead of time
Karen
Kate - Exact same way! I tested it and it works perfectly with those sheets. I have one of those dreaded sheets too! ~ karen!
Nathalie
Those all elastic sheets always confuse me. It takes me a few tries to put them on the mattress proper. Which one is the long side and which one is the short side meh.
Lucy
Yup, that's what I was talking about. It becomes automatic after a time or two and you no longer have to do the "step, ball, change" movement to get it right. It was one of the things my mother taught me as she prepared me to go off to college. I'm sure it was so I wouldn't look like the country bumpkin I am. Other students thought it was a great idea and I found a whole new following as the "sheet girl." Not sure if that's better than "country bumpkin." Can you believe I was never invited to join a sorority???
Heather
Excellent! When I watched your last sheet-folding video I thought to my self, "I can't believe Karen doesn't do it the easy way!" I'm glad to see you've figured it out... and are hydrated.
Nicole
ok, the step ball change was awesome. and so is your accent!
Karen
Accent? ACCENT???!!!! I have no accent! I'm from the part of the world that speaks like they do on television! Well, except for the word "house" and "out" apparently. ~ karen!
Liss
I was actually watching it thinking, she doesn't have an accent. Strange. I'm from Chicago.
Stacy
hmph. I knew there was a better way than just wadding it into a ball and shoving it into the linen closet.
I really want to try this. I do. Buuuutttt....it's late and the the linen closet is all the way over there. I WILL try this tomorrow. Kinda excited about it too. I will report back at my earliest convenience.
itchbay
I love that your name is Karen and your mother's name is Betty. That's my name, and my mom's name too. You're much cooler than I am. I'm not going to compare our mothers, because my mom is seriously kick-ass.
Also, folding fitted sheets was something I learned very young. Or maybe I devised it on my own. I've always been a pretty meticulous linen folder. I put myself through college (two semesters, at least) working at a Linens and More, which is like a poor cousin of Linens and Things. I would hide in the back from the terrible customers and fold towels for the display wall for hours. It was surprisingly meditative.
Whitney
I don't know if its because the sheet I have is so soft and floppy but I had a very difficult time with the end of the folding process. I took your "do whatever you have to do to get this sheet folded just do it" instructions quite literally. Didn't go quite as smoothly as yours but it was folded much more nicely than any fitted sheet I've ever folded, so I am going to call it a success.
Christina
It looks so simple!!! I have to try this instead of laying it out on my bed and running around to fold each side
Marti
Yeah, but so when is Paula Abdul going to teach us how to fold a sheet?
Karen
Hah! Can you imagine how long and slurry that video would be? I love Paula. ~ karen