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!
Kathy
Wait.
A. I've looked and I can't find a video anywhere.
B. Why would anyone use a flat sheet on the bottom instead of a fitted sheet?
Karen
I'm looking into the video issue Kathy. I can see it fine, but I'm checking it. Anddddd a flat sheet is really easy for a bottom sheet. You never have to worry about whether it will be too small (not fit around) or too big ( all loose and mushy) for your mattress. ~ karen!
Kathy
All right, you don't have to worry about the sheet fitting, but isn't it constantly coming untucked and having to be retucked. I have stayed in hotels a few times that used flat sheets on the bottom, and I found it intensely irritating.
Gayle
We must be on the same aave length--folding fitted sheets like that for years. After figuring that out, I went on to figuring out how to fold the top sheet so that by unfolding it on the bed had it facing wrong side up with the top at the top. My mom just folded them any which way, and as a kid it as hard to fling it up so that it fluttered down on the bed--and then the adjustments here and there to get it straight. Nope--just lay it down and unfold, tuck and yer done. Now I'm making tight little bundles banded together by the pillow case... Blame that on Marie Kondo. Thanks for the fun video on folding. Smile
Joan Fowler
At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, I cannot find a live link for the video anywhere on your post. Obviously everyone else has - well, except for one, Margherite Floyd, who seems to be having the same problem as me.
Karen
I'm looking into it Joan. But it could be because you have an ad blocker running on your site. If you do, you can't watch any of my videos because they have an ad embedded into the beginning of them. ~ karen!
Lin Celoni
That wasn't your Super Duper New Project? I can't imagine anything more fabulous that folding a fitted sheet. You are amazing.
Karen
Um, no, lol. I *wish* I could have finished the super duper project in the length of time it takes to fold a fitted sheet. ~ karen!
Lori Putnam
I can't find the "video below", but it must be there. Nothing is highlighted to click on. Please clue me in. Thanks.
Jen Boykin
I’ve needed this my whole life. Thank you.
Ellen Kapsalis
I love these life lessons which I never was taught as a child or teenager. Thank you!!
Becky
Hmm, I can’t find the video link in this post. Maybe it’s me? Please direct me.
Kat - the other 1
I know how to fold fitted sheets... Throw them out the window! ;D
Diana
Your email came in at 11:58pm. I absolutely cannot believe it was on folding fitted sheets!! Where were these fun instructions and the fabulous video when I was folding the THREE FITTED SHEETS at 2:00pm this afternoon?? My sheets look like a 2 year old folded them. So, at 2:13AM I am going upstairs and refolding those sheets a la Karen! Thank you for yet another great laugh. BTW I am 5'3 and the sheets are king-sized.
Karen
Hahahaha!! What are the chances??! ~ karen
Lynn
I learned a about 25 or so years ago, funny thing is that now I don’t do it cause kids are grown up an left. I just wash an replace them on my bed no storage needed. What a time saver over the years.
Marguerite Floyd
Where's the video???
Ruthi
No video showed up on my desktop, either. Help??
TJ
Yes yes yes I can now fold and iron a fitted sheet in minutes . Video so easy to understand , thank you thank you thank you
Karen
You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome. :) ~ karen!
Tigersmom
"I had trouble with this the last time.." I'm not sure the word trouble quite covers it. It should be more like "massive, hilarious, side-splitting trouble."
Maybe some jazzhandssssss will help you find those corners easier in the next "How to fold a fitted sheet video. I know you said you're not doing another one, but I'm not giving up hope yet. We need to see you and Betty folding a fitted sheet with all-around elastic together, to music (I'll let you choose the soundtrack), and soon. Please.
Carol
THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying for 2 days now to properly fold my elastic all around fitted sheet. After countless videos and write ups I was about go give up when I came across yours...it worked! Thanks you for your wonderful detailed explanation! It may have taken 2 days but you made me feel like less of an idiot for it :)
Karen
Carol - 2 days. That's not bad. When I was trying to figure this out I did the same thing, searching on the Internet, trying to follow tutorials. I must have done it for a month before I deciphered what they were really talking about. Good job! ~ karen
Rebecca
I believe I've already said it twice before on your website, but it feels soooo good to just quit bothiering to fold fitted sheets perfectly. Karen, oh Karen, why won't you listen to me?!? It's been a couple of years now and I've never looked back.
Karen
Rebecca - Um. Do I strike you as the kind of person who'd ball my sheets up? Have I not clearly enough presented my "crazy" to you? For the love of GOD woman, I've been known to iron my sheets. (also I have no closet space at all and balled up sheets take up way more space and are way more prone to falling off the shelf and onto the floor than a folded one) - karen!
Rebecca
Karen, I am completely OCD too, and probably have less closet space than you (100 year old 3 bdrm house - 4 people living in it - 2 closets - one in master bedroom and one in front hall - which, might I add, is under the stairs so not even full height).
One would never guess that I would be a ball 'em up kinda gal, but it's so liberating. Really, you should try it for just a few weeks. And I'm not like one of those "you've just never had brussels sprouts cooked properly kind of people." If you try it and don't love it, I'll drop the subject and stop nagging!
AllThoseThingsILove!
My new favorite site!
I found you via the tree stump table, moved to the fitted sheet video...but its 2:30am in So Cal. Can't wait to explore further!
Karen
Thanks! Hope you got some sleep. ~ karen!
Laura
I love your tutorials. All of your videos, actually. They're very entertaining.
The ex-dancer in me is groaning, though. What you were doing? It was a "ball-change, step" - you did the ball-change first, and then you took the step. Although you did them with such grace that I'm willing to forgive...
Karen
Laura - Did you happen to notice the text when I did it a second time, just prior to heading to the dining room table? ~ karen
Jamieson Cochrane
I've decided that the easiest way to fold a fitted sheet is to have a household staff to do it for me, freeing me up to watch more Downton Abbey and filling my head with such silly notions.
Karen
Jamieson - Although it is uncouth to point out that one is being uncouth ... I must point out that it's uncouth to discuss domestic help amongst the masses. ~ lady karen
Candace Hamilton
This is very close to how my Granny taught us to fold fitted sheets. We were barely teenagers, if even that, when she taught us...therefore, ANYONE can do it! The first step of folding the one end into the other in the left hand was pretty much the same (folding with the inside of the seams together on the inside of the fold). Then she had us do the same thing with the other two ends in our right hand. Next, we would take the right hand and slide it over the left hand depositing those ends (together) over the ends already on the left hand (instead of going to the inside and then the outside with each end) so that all the corner seams aligned along the top of the right hand...one on top of the other. The rest of the steps were basically the same as yours (we folded in halves only, not in thirds at the end). Afterwards, we would fold the top sheet the same way ( hot-dog like) so both sheets end up folded to be the same size, leaving the last fold undone... then we took the fitted sheet and folded pillow cases and put them inside the top sheet and made the last fold around them. No more hunting to find the proper sheets to make the bed...they are already bundled together. Easy-peasy!! She would also fold lavender sachets in with each set. Her sheets always smelled so wonderful! Mmmm...crawling into bed, relaxing smell of lavender, all your cares just melting away...makes me sleepy just thinking about it! I still make sachets from those wedding rice bags you can buy at wedding stores (some Walmart stores still carry them too)...although, I sometimes switch out the potpourri inside for a different smell. I've even tucked a Bounce dryer sheet inside instead of the sachet! By the way, I absolutely LOVE your website...I find myself perusing it for hours! One of these days I'm going to get off of it long enough to clean my house, teach my cats to use the toilet, and get crafty! =)
Karen
Thanks Candace! ~ karen