Laundry Folding Tips & Products: Your Complete Guide

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How do you fold a fitted sheet? These questions and more are all answered in this laundry folding guide. Tackle that pile of laundry for good!

Something as simple as learning how to fold shirts or towels in a new way can transform your entire closet! Check out this guide for everything you ever wanted to know about how to fold all sorts of clothes.

Are you looking for laundry washing tips? We have some stain-fighting hacks that will make your job easier.

Laundry Folding Tips & Products: Your Complete Guide

Wondering where to begin? Get our FREE guide, The 30-Minute Organizing Secret, and discover easy ways to overcome the chaos of clutter – even with kids at home!

Laundry folding Guide

Compare the same set of drawers – one with folded clothes, and one with wadded up clothes – and you can see the difference a little folding makes! Not only can you fit more clothes in your drawers when you fold them, but it protects your clothes too.

Folding clothes keeps them from looking too wrinkled and can actually make them look newer for longer.

So, you could say that folding your clothes actually saves you money!

In this guide, I’ll show you how to fold just about everything! If there’s something missing from this list, let me know and I’ll add it.

Table of Contents

How To fold Everything You own

I scoured tons of resources and found all the best tips and tricks for folding clothes. I’ll show you – with videos that you can stop and pause – how to fold just about everything you own.

Going through and refolding everything will change how your closets and drawers look. It’s a dramatic change that is pretty simple.

How to Fold Everything From Fitted Sheets... to T-Shirts and Jeans

How To Fold a fitted sheet

Yes, I started with the hardest one first! Wadding up your fitted sheets might seem faster, but I promise there is an easier way. This video is the best one I’ve found. To fold a fitted sheet just takes a bit of practice.

You’ll need space to stretch your arms out and a flat surface to lay your sheet for the last step. If you have both of those, then you are ready to practice. Believe me, when you finally get this, you’ll feel unstoppable!

How To Fold Jeans

There are actually lots of different ways to fold jeans. I found a video that shows you how to fold them in each of these space-saving ways!

These are a few of the different ways you can fold your jeans:

  • Roll your jeans
  • Fold them in half
  • Fold jeans in thirds

Check out this video that shows you all the ways to fold your jeans (and save tons of space!)

How To fold T-Shirts

I’m actually going to show you a few different videos because there are all sorts of different ways to fold a t-shirt. I think my favorite is the pinch and fold. It looks like a magic trick – pinch and BAM! A folded shirt!

Pinch and Fold Method

This is like magic! You literally just pinch at the top of the shirt and about 1/3 of the way from the top. Then, twist your arms, one behind the other, and grab the bottom of the shirt.

Pull it back around, give it a little shake, and lay it back down. You have a folded shirt in no time at all. Here’s a video that slows it down for you.

Chest Fold

If you don’t have a folding table, no worries! You can fold your shirts right on your chest. This technique doesn’t require any fancy twists or turns, it is pretty simple.

KonMari Folding

Folding shirts the KonMari way lets you store them standing up, which gives you a ton more space in your drawers. This is also a way to pack more shirts in your luggage easily too – without wrinkles!

Roll Your T-Shirts To Avoid Wrinkles

Lots of these folding techniques will keep wrinkles out of your shirts. That’s what this method promises to do too. Plus, when you fold your shirts, you can fit so many more of them in your drawers than when you just fold them and stack them.

I also love how rolling your shirts in this way keeps them folded no matter what.

How To Fold Underwear

Do you fold your underwear? It might seem like a frivolous waste of time because no one will see it, so why fold it?

Folding your underwear is actually a really good idea. It can help your underwear last longer. Plus, if you stuff your drawers too full, it can actually hurt them. One of the most common causes of broken drawers is trying to stuff them shut when they have too many clothes.

KonMari Method

Emily from the UK has a fabulous tutorial that shows you how to fold your underwear, step by step. She uses the KonMari method of folding her undies. (Please note that this website is no longer available as of February 09, 2023)

Square Tuck Method

Another fast way to fold your undies (and save space) is the square tuck method. This way keeps them folded in your drawer, no matter how many times you shuffle through them!

How To Fold Towels

There are also lots of ways you can fold towels. Most people fold towels two ways. They either just simply fold them in half (and half again) or they fold them in thirds.

Which way do you fold towels?

This video from Judi The Organizer shows the 3 most popular ways – including the roll-up technique.

KonMari Towel Folding Technique

The other way to fold towels that is starting to really become more popular is by following Marie Kondo’s technique. Here’s a video explaining it step by step.

How To Fold Socks

Rolling socks is the easiest way to keep the pairs together. It’s also the most unreliable. So many socks become unfolded in your drawers, and it stretches out the tops of them too. Plus, how do you fold no-show socks?

Check out these videos showing you all the different ways you can fold socks!

No-Show Socks

Folding socks that have almost no area to them can be daunting. To fold no-show socks, just tuck one inside the other and then fold them in thirds.

Here’s a video demonstrating it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_afP_zpNf1/

More Ways To Fold Socks

This video is so satisfying. I could watch it all day. I love the first method. Folding your socks into neat little squares really changes how your underwear drawer looks.

It even shows you the military method of folding your socks (which keeps them folded so well you could throw them like a ball!).

How To Fold LEggings

There are also a bunch of different ways you can store your leggings. I personally like the method of just rolling them up and storing them in a basket in your closet. This is so easy and frees up valuable space in your drawers.

If you want to store your leggings in your drawers, I found a video that shows a super easy and space saving way to fold yoga pants.

Imagine how many more pairs of pants you can buy with all the space you have now!

How To Fold Baby Clothes

If you are trying organize the nursery, then you probably have some baby clothes to fold. Believe me, I know how tough it is to fold baby clothes. They are so tiny that they don’t give you much room for pinching and grabbing.

That’s why I prefer to hang up as many baby clothes as I can. It’s easier to find them this way too.

I found a helpful video that gives you a few more options too.

What To Fold and What to Hang up

Deciding what to fold and store in your drawers and what to hang up in your closets can be a tough decision. How do you know which is which?

Let’s look at a few factors that will help you chose which clothes to hang up.

Folding vs. Hanging: The Best Storage Solution for Everything You Own

Type of Fabric

First, look at the type of fabric. Does it wrinkle easily? If it does, then you should hang it up. With some pieces of clothing, no matter how you try to fold them, they will wrinkle.

Other types of fabric will indent from the hangers too easily and so they should be folded and kept in your drawers. Lightweight jersey-knit shirts are best kept folded in your drawers.

Drawer Space

How much space do you have in your drawers? If you have more clothes than you have space, then try to hang some of them up in your closets.

Closets are also a really good idea if you have a tiny bedroom and don’t have space for a chest of drawers.

Laundry Folding Tricks to Try Today

Closet Space

On the flip side, if you don’t have very much closet space, you might have to figure out how to keep more of your clothes in your drawers.

One hack that some people do in these cases is they store clothes in baskets on a bookshelf.

Another idea is to buy a portable clothes rack like the ones they use backstage at fashion shows.

When you are short on space, you do what you have to do to store your clothes.

Clothing Size

The final thing you should consider when trying to figure out where to store your clothes is the size of your clothes.

Bulky things like sweaters and jackets should be hung up or stored in bags under your bed. Drawer space is a limited commodity. Don’t use it up with bulky sweaters or sweatshirts.

Laundry Folding Products

Folding clothes might be boring and monotonous, but there are lots of products out there that make it go by faster (and easier!). Some of these laundry folding products will cut your folding time in half. What will you do with all that time?

Laundry Folding Products to Save Your Sanity

Laundry Folding Table

The most essential product you should have is a clear space to fold your laundry. Having a laundry folding table will make folding bulky thing like annoying fitted sheets a cinch!

If you don’t have space for an entire table, snag something smaller like a rolling laundry sorter. Bonus – it has room for 3 bags of laundry underneath it! Plus, it has wheels so you can take it from room to room.

Laundry folding machine

2023 Update: When we wrote this post in 2019, a laundry folding machine was debuted at CES Tech show. Since that time it hasn’t made it to market and isn’t available anymore. But below is a video from that show. We can dream, right?

Here’s a video showing you how it works. It’s pretty amazing.

The only downside to using a machine like this is that you don’t get to choose different folding methods. You get what the machine gives you.

Miracle Fold

Anyone that saw The Big Bang Theory TV show is familiar with Sheldon’s favorite gadget – the miracle fold. It folds everything perfectly every time.

If you don’t want to spend the money, you can make your own folding board with just a piece of cardboard.

They are less than $20 on Amazon if you want to grab one even faster.

Laundry Folding Hacks

The more laundry you fold, the more hacks you’ll find to save yourself time. Very few people actually enjoy folding load after load of laundry.

Not Your Mama's Laundry Folding Hacks

Fold Them Directly Out of the Dryer

As soon as the dryer finishes, pull your clothes out and put them away. This will prevent your clothes from getting wrinkles in them. If your kids are old enough, make it a game with them. See who can put away the clothes the fastest!

Fold Clothes By Grouping outfits

Instead of putting your kid’s clothes in separate drawers by type (shirts, pants, etc) fold them by outfits.

When you group outfits together, you can tell your kids to grab an outfit and put them on. It saves so much time from trying to pick out a top and a bottom separately.

Try New Techniques to save space

Do you think you are running out of space in your drawers or closet? Try something new. Take everything out and try to either roll or fold them in squares. You might be surprised at how much space you suddenly have!

Transform Your Closet with These Laundry Folding Techniques

Laundry Folding: Final Thoughts

Laundry folding doesn’t have to be a a dreaded chore. Try some of these new methods. Just learning a new way of doing it will make it a little more fun.

Don’t forget to reward yourself after you transform the drawers and closets in your home. You deserve it!

Struggling to get motivated? Sign up to get our FREE guide, The 30-Minute Organizing Secret, and discover easy ways to overcome the chaos of clutter – even with kids at home!

More Laundry Room Organizing Tips

If you are still looking for ways to revamp your laundry room, try these tips and ideas next!

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