How much fabric do I need for a quilt?

The short answer: a quilt needs fabric for four things — the top, the backing, the binding, and (bought rather than cut) the batting. For a standard queen that comes to roughly 8 yards for the top, 8 1/4 for the backing, and 3/4 for the binding. Here is the whole picture, size by size, and how to work out your own.

Total fabric by quilt size

Quilt	Finished size	Pieced top	Backing (42“ fabric)	Backing (108“ wide)	Binding
Baby / crib	36“ × 52“	~1 3/4 yd	2 1/2 yd	1 3/4 yd	3/8 yd
Throw / lap	50“ × 65“	~2 3/4 yd	3 1/4 yd	2 1/8 yd	1/2 yd
Twin	70“ × 90“	~5 1/2 yd	5 1/2 yd	2 3/4 yd	5/8 yd
Full / double	85“ × 100“	~7 1/2 yd	7 3/4 yd	3 yd	3/4 yd
Queen	90“ × 100“	~7 3/4 yd	8 1/4 yd	3 yd	3/4 yd
King	105“ × 100“	~9 yd	9 yd	3 1/4 yd	7/8 yd

Backing figures assume 4“ of overhang on every side and 40“ of usable width after the selvages come off. The top figures are the finished area plus a 25% allowance — see below for why that number, and when to change it.

The quilt top

There is no single formula, because the top depends entirely on how it is pieced. The reliable approach is to work backwards from the cutting list:

1. Count how many pieces of each size and each fabric the pattern needs.
2. Work out how many fit across a 40“ width — that is your pieces per strip.
3. Divide the count by that and round up for the number of strips.
4. Multiply the strips by the cut height, divide by 36, and round up to the nearest eighth of a yard.

The pieces from fabric calculator does steps 2 to 4 for you, and the fabric yardage calculator goes straight from “I need 240 pieces at 3 1/2 inches” to a yardage figure.

If you have no cutting list yet — you are standing in the shop with an idea — the area estimate in the table above is close enough: take the finished area in square inches, divide by 1,440 (that is 40“ × 36“, one usable yard), and add 25%.

Why 25%?

Seam allowances are the bulk of it. A quilt made of 3“ finished squares cut at 3 1/2“ spends about 30% of its fabric on seams; one made of 12“ blocks spends closer to 8%. Add the strip ends that are too short to use and the odd cutting mistake, and 25% is a fair average.

Scale it to what you are making: 15% for large simple blocks, 25% for ordinary piecing, 35–40% for anything with lots of small pieces, triangles, or fussy cutting. Triangles are the expensive ones — every half-square triangle starts life as a square nearly an inch bigger than it finishes.

The backing

The backing has to be bigger than the top — about 4 inches on every side, or 4 to 6 if a longarm quilter is finishing it. From standard 42“-wide fabric, anything wider than about 40“ needs two or three lengths seamed together, and which way you seam them changes the yardage significantly.

That is what the backing calculator works out: it tries the quilt both ways round and gives you the orientation with fewer panels and less waste. On a twin, choosing the better direction saves nearly a yard.

Wide backing fabric — sold 108“ wide — sidesteps the whole problem. You buy the length only, there are no seams to press, and for anything from a twin upwards it is usually cheaper as well. The fifth column of the table above is what that looks like.

The binding

Binding is the easy one: perimeter + 10 inches, divided by 40“ of usable width, rounded up to whole strips, times your strip width. At the standard 2 1/2“ that is 3/8 yard for a baby quilt and 7/8 for a king. The binding calculator runs it for any size, and how to bind a quilt covers what to do with the strips once you have cut them.

Borders and sashing

If your design has them, they come out of the top’s yardage — but they need length, not area, and that is where estimates go wrong. A 90“ quilt needs 90“-long border strips, which is more than two widths of fabric, so plan them as full-width strips joined end to end (or cut them lengthwise from a longer piece if you want no joins at all).

• Border calculator — strip lengths and yardage, butted or mitered.
• Sashing and cornerstones guide — how many strips, and how sashing grows the finished size.

The batting

Batting is bought, not cut from yardage, so it works differently: you either buy the packaged size that covers your quilt or cut a length off a roll. The catch is that a “queen” package does not necessarily fit a queen quilt — allow the same 4“ per side and check the real dimensions. The batting sizes chart lists every package with the largest top it genuinely covers.

A worked example

A 70“ × 90“ twin, pieced from 10“ finished blocks with a 4“ border:

• Top: 6,300 sq in ÷ 1,440 = 4.4 yd, plus 15% for large simple blocks ≈ 5 yd across all the fabrics in the top.
• Backing: 78“ × 98“ needed. Two full-width lengths seamed together is 196“ of fabric, so 5 1/2 yd — or 2 3/4 yd of 108“ wide.
• Binding: perimeter 320“ + 10“ = 330“ ÷ 40“ = 9 strips at 2 1/2“ = 5/8 yd.
• Batting: 78“ × 98“ needed — a twin package is 72“ × 90“, so this one takes a full/double package or a cut off a roll.

That last line is the sort of thing that is easy to miss until you are standing at the checkout, which is exactly why it is worth running the numbers before you shop rather than after.

Do it all at once

The quilt yardage calculator takes one finished size and returns the backing, batting, and binding together — the whole finishing list from a single number. And the quilt size chart has it precomputed for every standard size, if your quilt is a standard one.