
before
I think it’s safe to say that in 42 years, the phrase, “I love my bathmat,” has never crossed my lips. Bathmats are functional and not much more. My old one was getting pretty ratty and all of the non-stick stuff on the back had crumbled away. I have this old clawfoot tub and climbing out of it can be a little dangerous if the floor gets wet and the bathmat goes sliding across the slippery floor. (I hate to just toss the old one in a landfill but I think it’s too ratty for donation….any ideas on what to do with it??)

At Jo-ann’s, I came across this “Grip-Tight” fabric (in the “Utility Fabrics” section) which is coated with rubber dots. I think it’s intended for making footie-pajamas, but it occurred to me that it would make a good base for a new bathmat, so I decided to try making my own. You could also use one of those non-slip rug pads. Either way, you’ll get a much longer life out of it if you don’t put it in the dryer.

after
If you’d like to make a bathmat of your own, I’ve included a tutorial below. I used muted colors and batiks so it would go with my bathtowels, but this would be fun in bright prints or solids as well. This project is simple and satisfying — you will be able to finish it in a couple of evenings. I’m not sure how durable this will be so if you have a large household, you will want to use more heavy-duty fabrics than I have used here. But I am so pleased with the results that I can actually say that I love my bathmat — go figure.

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Simple striped bathmat
These instructions will make a bathmat that is approximately 22″ by 30″ but you can easily change the dimensions with a little math. As always, let me know if anything is unclear!
For this project, you will need:
- Assuming your fabric is at least 44″ wide, 1/3 yard each of light- and medium-toned fabric and 1/4 yard of dark fabric (you will have some leftovers of each after you cut).
- An old terrycloth bathtowel or a piece of terrycloth that is at least 22″ x 30″ (you can piece this together since it will not be visible).
- Grip-Tight is only 15″ wide, so if you use this, you will need to purchase two yards and piece it together; otherwise, purchase a non-slip rug mat that is at least 22″ x 30″.
- At least 115″ of double-fold bias tape — if you purchase tape, one pack (4 yards) will be plenty. The width depends on how thick your layers are. Wider binding is easier to work with, so if you’ve never used binding before or are using a thick terrycloth layer, go for the 1″ or 1 and 1 /2″ binding.
- Don’t forget thread! There is a tiny bit of quilting involved so you’ll want some corresponding thread.

Cut four 4″ x 22″ pieces from the light fabric; three 4″ x 22″ pieces from the medium fabric; and six 1.5″ x 22″ pieces from the dark fabric. Wait to cut the middle and backing layers until you have pieced the top in case your stitches are not perfectly measured and it comes out a bit longer or shorter than you expected.

Using a 1/4″ seam, sew the top pieces together then press your seams. I pressed mine open as I wanted them to lay completely flat, but you can press them to the side if that is your preference. (The quickest, easiest way to piece the top is to first sew three darks and three mediums together, and three darks and three lights together. Feed them through the machine one after the other then clip them apart afterwards. Press the seams, then join these pieces together, making sure to do so in the correct order. Finish by pressing the second set of seams.)

I added a middle layer of terrycloth so the mat would be absorbent and have a bit of cush under my feet. Ideally, you would recycle an old towel for the middle layer, but I didn’t have any so I purchased some new terrycloth. Pin your top to the terrycloth and trim to size. Quilt as desired. I just did a couple of straight lines through the medium strips (almost impossible to see in the above pic, sorry).

If you are using Grip-Tight, cut and join the fabric so you end up with a large enough piece. Grip-Tight is very thick, so I sewed the edges of the seam down to keep them flat. (Ok, here’s the dirty little secret of this project: Grip-Tight is not the easiest fabric to work with. Those little dots are tough! Perservere and be patient, you can do this!)
Place the top-middle layers right-side up on top of your bottom layer (right-side down) and pin it together. Stitch around the outside edge, close enough to the edge that these stitches will be hidden by the binding, then trim the bottom layer to size.
For the final step, attach the binding. Now there are a couple of ways to do this. The first is the method I used — attaching the binding to the front by machine, then sewing it to the back by hand. Heather Bailey offers a printable guide to this method here. This method is more time-consuming and hand-stitching through the rubber dots has the potential to make you a bit crazy (with very sore fingers), so feel free to do it all by machine as is wonderfully demonstrated in this video tutorial from Amy Karol of the Angry Chicken.
Hey look — you’re done! Whoo hoo! A new bathmat!