What is the difference between comforters and quilts

Do you usually run warm at night? As both comforters and quilts have pros and cons, these can all be deciding factors when shopping for bedding. Quilts are lighter-weight and more comparable to blankets, with a thin layer of fill inside. Elks describes a quilt as more of a decorative piece rather than a basic bedding necessity.

Quilts can also consist of different fabrics pieced together to create a pattern. On the other hand, comforters are an essential bedding piece, typically stuffed with down or down alternatives. If you're looking for a warm, lofty sleep experience, similar to one you'd experience in a luxe hotel, adding a comforter to your bed is key.

A comforter is a large pouch of soft fabric to adorn your bed, typically filled with fibers like wool, silk, cotton, or polyester. But with added fluff comes added warmth—keep this in mind if you run warm at night. Comforters not only add volume to your bed, but they can also add bulk to your linen closet, which makes them more difficult to store.

If you don't have a ton of space for storage, the good news is you can switch up your bedding style by stuffing your comforter in various duvet covers. The best part about pairing them with a duvet is it can extend the life of your comforter. Elks tells us that most comforters cannot be washed at home, and adds that dry cleaning down comforters can shorten their lifespan. Place your comforter in a duvet cover to preserve it and make cleaning a breeze. If you're okay with hauling your bedding to the dry cleaner often, you can skip the duvet cover and opt for a down alternative.

The bottom layer is usually a single piece of fabric that does not look like the top layer of the quilt. Now, a comforter consists of two pieces of identical material , sewn together in a grid format. Comforters can feature a sewn-through or baffle box construction.

Sewn-through is when the stitching goes all the way through both sides of the comforter. With a baffle box construction, there are extra pieces of fabric between the top and bottom layers of the comforter.

Inside each square or box will be some type of fluffy fill such as down or down alternative. The down will come from animals such as ducks or geese, and the down alternative is made of some type of hypoallergenic material like polyester. For more information about the differences between duvets and comforters , make sure to check out our comparison. Looking at quilts and comforters, there are first a few similarities between the two.

Both types of bedding can contain cotton in their top and bottom layers, and they can both contain fill like down or polyester. Also, they can feature a similar gridded design.

That being said, there are a number of differences between comforters and quilts. First off, in general, comforters are going to be loftier than quilts. Quilts are usually a flatter type of bedding that lie more flush against the bed, but some of the best comforters can be more cloud-like and fluffy. Brooklinen brooklinen. Marimekko Pieni Letto Comforter.

Lightweight Comforter. SlumberCloud slumbercloud. Pottery Barn potterybarn. Related Story. Hannah Smothers Hannah writes about health, sex, and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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