Open Project cost in the studio. The form on this page is that calculator.
Why a quilt's cost is a list of prices you type
Nothing on this page guesses a price. Quilt-shop cotton might be twelve dollars a yard, or on sale for eight, and batting is a package with a sticker, not a formula. Type what the bolt says. Leave a line blank if you already own it, and that line stays at zero.
The yardages come from the other calculators: backing, binding, and, for the top, the fabric calculator inside a Quiltler design, which knows the real pieces rather than a rectangle of cloth. A top estimated as "five yards" is a guess this page will happily multiply. It will not make the guess more true.
How the total is calculated
- Fabric lines = yards × price per yard, for the top, the backing, and the binding
- Batting and thread = the package price, once each
- Total = the sum of the lines you filled in
This is materials. A longarmer's fee is separate, and it is often the largest single line on a bed quilt. Ask them before you treat the fabric total as the cost of the finished quilt.
A throw, at made-up prices
These are the numbers the form opens on, so you can see the arithmetic. They are not a quote. Replace every price with the one on the bolt.
| Line | Amount | Price | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 5 yards | $12 a yard | $60 |
| Backing | 4 yards | $11 a yard | $44 |
| Binding | 1/2 yard | $12 a yard | $6 |
| Batting | 1 package | $18 | $18 |
| Thread | 1 spool | $8 | $8 |
| Materials | $136 |
How to use this calculator
- Get the yardages first, from a pattern or from the backing, binding, and fabric calculators. Type those yards.
- Type the price per yard from the bolt, or the sale price you will actually pay. Different fabrics can share a line only if they cost the same.
- Type the batting package and the thread as single prices, not as yards.
- Leave a line blank if you already own it. Read the total as materials only.
What to add after the total
- Longarm quilting, batting you upgrade, and a second spool are the lines people forget. Add them before you decide the quilt is in budget.
- Tax and a fat quarter you did not plan on are real. The card is the list you typed, and the shop total will be a little higher.
- A queen is several times a throw in backing and batting. Run the backing calculator before you trust a throw's prices scaled up by guesswork.
When the piece is part of a whole quilt. The studio's fabric list is the yardage to type into the top line. The prices still come from your shop. The fabric calculator counts every piece in a design, then adds binding, backing, and batting. These pages answer one question at a time.