VIDEO How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

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Fold a fitted sheet neatly is so easy once you learn how. With this easy step-by-step tutorial and video, you’ll be a pro at folding fitted sheets in no time!

A collage of pictures showing how to fold a fitted sheet

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

Wondering how to fold a fitted sheet? Apparently so are a lot of people as I realized recently!

One of the ways we save money when we move is using our linens to pack fragile items…I’ve always washed them as we put them away at our new home so it just makes since to save money (and the environment!) by reducing the amount of packaging and bubble wrap we use each time the Army sends us somewhere new.

As we’ve been unpacking these past two weeks and doing laundry we’ve been washing and folding a lot of laundry. The other day I came upon a blob of a sheet sitting on my bed. I asked my husband if he folded it like that or it just got set down out of the dryer in what looked like a meager attempt at a rectangle.

It was just then that I realized that he (and a ton of other people out there apparently) didn’t know how to fold a fitted sheet! I must be a lucky one that my mom taught me young but just in case anyone else doesn’t know I thought I’d share today!

*Updated February 2016-I’ve added a video to make it a little more clear!

{Please be aware my husband took these photos with my phone and was trying to make me laugh constantly during the process of folding fitted sheets, so forgive any weird faces and graininess!}

Folding a Fitted Sheet Step by Step

Yield: 1

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

step by step fitted sheet how to fold

Fold a fitted sheet neatly is so easy once you learn how. With this easy step-by-step tutorial and video you'll be a pro at folding fitted sheets in no time!

Active Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes

Materials

  • fitted shhet

Instructions

    1. Start with your sheet inside out with your hands in each of the corner pockets on the long side of the sheet. how to fold a fitted sheet
    2. Use your chin to hold the middle of the sheet and bring your hands together. how to fold a fitted sheet
    3. Fold one corner over the other. how to fold a fitted sheet
    4. You should now have a somewhat 90 degree corner on the side of your pockets.  Turn your sheet and put the corner pockets one inside the other on the opposite end of the sheet. how to fold fitted sheet
    5. You now have something resembling a true rectangle. how to fold a fitted sheet
    6. Just as you did in step 2 keep each hand in a corner pocket and use your chin to hold the center as you fold then flip one set of corners over the other. how to fold a fitted sheet
    7. Move to a flat surface to finish folding.  Straighten the corners when you lay it down to make it as cleanly rectangular as possible.
    8. Fold the sheet into thirds starting with the “frumpy” end first and then, depending on your sheet size fold into halves or thirds to finish it up. step by step fitted sheet how to fold

Notes

Practice makes perfect, don't be hard on yourself if it's awkward the first few times you try it, you'll be a pro in no time!

So I have to know…were you taught to fold a fitted sheet growing up, learned it on your own, or have you been living in fitted sheet chaos all these years? Let me know in the comments!

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31 Comments

  1. When I was growing up in England in the 1940s & ’50s, we did not have fitted sheets–in fact, I don’t think there were such things. Now I live in the USA, & I do what Janet Sinclair (above) does: lay the sheet face down on the bed, & fold the edges toward the middle all the way around, then into halves & then quarters. The end result just looks so neat, you wouldn’t know ’twas a fitted sheet! I’ve even used a conference-sized tablecloth to demonstrate this to an office co-worker, & he no longer inadvertently folds himself inside his sheet. But… I will now try your method, Melissa, as I’m constantly exploring new ways to do things. Thank you!

    1. I worked as a hotel housekeeper in college and we didn’t use fitted sheets either, it made changing linens much faster and easier when making dozens of beds a day, no sorting sheets!

  2. I I must try this method again as I always got in a terrible muddle! You make it look easy. What I do is put the sheet face down on the bed and fold the edges over towards the middle all the way round. I then fold the sheet into halves then quarters, keeping the edges inside the folded sheet.

  3. Great Tutorial! I learned years ago when I was first married I used to go to a laundromat and the proprietor taught me how. She was the sweet grandmother of a girl I went to school with And very kind. She saw me struggling and came over and showed me how and I have never forgotten the lesson or her. What surprises me mor is the number of people that don’t know how to make a bed properly, in that they don’t know to put the top sheet on pattern side down. There is an inside and an outside patterned or not to every sheet and towel but some how it eludes some people.. Any way great job!
    Have a wonderful day!

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