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How to Make a Kitty Litter Rug

Lee Meredith, contributor

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I love our new burst of orange in the bathroom!

Lee Meredith

Making appliqué pieces from the same towel makes for a cool, subtle design feature.

Lee Meredith

Turn a new or recycled towel into a simple little rug.

Lee Meredith

I love our new burst of orange in the bathroom!

Photo: Lee Meredith

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We're lucky our tiny apartment bathroom is just big enough to fit the litter box, but that means our kitty kicks her litter onto the floor of our shared space, and cleanup is annoying and frequently necessary. So I whipped up this simple litter rug to cover the space that's often covered with litter, so cleanup will now mean shaking the rug into the trash, with no sweeping or vacuuming needed! And I think it brightens up the bathroom fabulously!

You'll need:

• One big towel
• Scissors
• Tape measure or ruler
• Sewing machine

First, you need to measure how wide you want your rug. For mine, this ended up being about 3 inches on each side wider than the litter box base because that's what would fit in our tiny bathroom, but you may want it wider than that. You need to take note of the total width as well as the amount of space that will wrap around on each side. So my measurement was 16 inches total, with 3 inches on each side (meaning my litter box width is 10 inches).

Fold your towel in half, and mark your total measurement along one side. You'll be cutting through both layers of the folded towel, so you could pin them together to be extra safe about cutting them exactly the same size and shape.

That top edge is the folded edge, so I marked 16 inches in from that end.

Cut a big U shape, or half-oval shape, through both towel layers, with the straight edge being the edge you marked. You can draw it on first and follow the line, or eyeball it, which is what I did.

Now you have two layers of identical half-ovals.

Sew the two layers together around the outside edge but not across the top.

I used a straight stitch, but you could use a zigzag or a decorative stitch if you want to.

Next, mark in from the ends the number of inches you took note of—the part that will wrap around the box. Look at how your litter box is shaped on the bottom, which is the shape you should cut. Mine was straight across the front, with rounded edges, so I just eyeballed that shape and cut it out. To get a symmetrical shape, without folding the whole thing in half and cutting through four layers of towel, cut half the shape, then fold the cut-out shape in half. Then you can follow along the cut part to make the second half match.

This was a trick I figured out to get a symmetrical cut-out section.

You have your finished rug shape; now just sew around the flat edges and cut-out part, then sew around the whole outside more times if you want to.

You just need to seal up the edges, and your simple towel rug is finished.

I chose to sew back around the whole thing two more times, moving the stitch lines in waves for a decorative touch. Unfortunately, you can barely see it because of the towel texture, but it's there.

If you choose to do some decorative topstitching, make sure you use a contrasting color thread.

Now it's time for embellishing! You don't have to, of course, but this is a great project for simple appliqués. I cut the towel edges off some of the leftover scraps to get these matching lines, which I just sewed on around the edges.

Making appliqué pieces from the same towel makes for a cool, subtle design feature.

One other thing you might want to add is some de-skidding material to the bottom, if your cat likes to mess with things. Or you can put it in place for a day or two and see how it works out. If you do need to hold it in place better, the blog Dollar Store Crafts has some great ideas—here's a nonskid bathmat tutorial and how to de-skid a slippery rug.

I love our new burst of orange in the bathroom!

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Comments (1)

trishpatsy02 writes: It's a great idea. One way to keep it from moving is to leave out the cut out and just put it under the litter box.

Posted: 2:42 pm on February 21st

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