Every great quilt starts with a plan, and if you're going to cut a lot of fabric, you'll want to make sure your finished quilt fits your bed.Before you commit to spending spend hours (possibly days, months or years!) stitching and lovingly crafting a homemade quilt, the last thing you want is to proudly reveal the finished project, only to discover it didn't quite come out the size you intended it to.
While there's always the handy get out of making it a "lap quilt" (so you can curl up under it on the sofa, no size limits needed – more on lap quilt sizes below), if you're keen for your quilt to fit a specific bed, we've made this handy guide to common quilt sizes to help you plan your project from the start.
Pictured quilt: Design Parade Medallion Sampler Quilt, designed by Laura Pritchard, quilted and made by Natalie Dyer of Harmony Quilts Co. for issue 52 of Today's Quilter magazine.
Standard quilt sizes for beds
UK quilt sizes
- Cot or crib quilt: 120x140xm (47x55in)
- Single quilt: 140x200cm (55x79in)
- Double quilt: 200x200cm (79x79in)
- King size quilt: 225x220cm (89x87in)
- Super King size quilt: 260x220cm (102x87in)
US quilt sizes
- Crib quilt: 36x54in (91x137cm)
- Twin quilt: 65x88in (165x224cm)
- Full/double quilt: 80x88in (203x224cm)
- Queen size quilt: 86x93in (218x246cm)
- King size quilt: 104x93in (264x236.22cm)
Standard baby quilt sizes
When you're making a quilt for babies, there may actually be a few different uses for nursery quilts, and this can affect the finished size you settle on. Many baby quilts are square in shape and can range from 30 inches (91cm) up to 47inches (120cm), though there's no hard and fast rule to the size you make.
If you're making for a crib it's worth double checking the mattress measurements first – a friend of mine once made a beautiful quilt that matched my baby's mattress size exactly but in practise didn't offer any overlap or overhang either side of the bed. We still treasured the quilt but used it more decoratively than as a practical layer of warmth.
In addition, older babies or young toddlers may be sleeping in a toddler bed (this usually involves the sane size mattress as a cot bed but without the cot sides and lower to the ground than an adult single bed). So before you do embark on a baby quilt, do a bit of snooping (if it's a gift!) first to check what exact size to make.
If you're just looking for a general baby quilt size though, use our table above as a guide.
What size is a lap quilt?
Ah how we love a lap quilt! Also known as "the solution if we were planning to make a full size quilt but ran out of fabric", the humble lap quilt is a catch all quilt that anyone can curl up on the sofa under. Here on the Gathered team we've made many a lap quilt in our time!
On a basic level, lap quilts are smaller than traditional quilts, but large enough for an adult to snuggle up under. They need to be big enough to fit under while you're reading a good book or watching Netflix, but not too bulky. Think about the purpose of the quilt when you're making it – so if you were making a quilt for someone in a wheelchair for example, you'd want it to be small enough not to jam under the wheels, while offering enough warmth to keep them fully covered.
To make a lap top, you don't really have to be constrained to any set size, although the majority of lap quilts measure between 38 inches and 50 along each side, with variation according to your preferred quilt shape and intended use.
