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How much backing fabric for a 50 × 65 quilt?

Throw size quilt, finished 50″ × 65″ (127 cm × 165.1 cm).

Buy
3 1/4 yd
of standard 42″–44″ quilting cotton — 2 panels × 58″ with 1 horizontal seam. Or 1 5/8 yd of 108″ wide backing (one piece, no seams — cut 58″). Metric: 3.0 m of 110 cm fabric.
58″ backing width 73″ quilt top 50″ × 65″

How it's worked out

  1. Add 4″ on every side for quilting (long-arm quilters usually ask for 4″–5″): 50 + 8 = 58″ wide, 65 + 8 = 73″ long.
  2. Quilting cotton is 42″–44″ wide; after trimming selvages about 40″ is usable, and each seam takes 1″.
  3. Running the seams horizontally you need 2 widths of fabric, each 58″ long.
  4. 2 × 58″ = 116″ = 3.22 yards → round up to the next ⅛ yard: 3 1/4 yd.

Sewing the seams the other way (vertical) would take 2 panels × 73″ with 1 vertical seam = 4 1/8 yd , so horizontal seams save fabric.

Backing yardage with different overhang

Extra per sideBacking size42″ fabric108″ wideMetric
2″ 54″ × 69″ 3 yd (2 panels) 1 1/2 yd 2.8 m
3″ 56″ × 71″ 3 1/8 yd (2 panels) 1 5/8 yd 2.9 m
4″ 58″ × 73″ 3 1/4 yd (2 panels) 1 5/8 yd 3.0 m
5″ 60″ × 75″ 3 3/8 yd (2 panels) 1 3/4 yd 3.1 m
6″ 62″ × 77″ 3 1/2 yd (2 panels) 1 3/4 yd 3.2 m

Same quilt: binding & batting

Try your own numbers

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