In early March each year we begin working on graduation T-shirt quilts. As we work on high school graduation quilts the one question we hear most often is “Should I have the quilt made to fit an extra-long twin size mattress for the dorms?”
Our experience says no for the following reasons...
Young adults generally only live in the dorms one or two years. After that time, they are left with a very long and skinny quilt. That shape is not very good for other beds or uses.- Most kids never make their beds in the dorms - unless they know you are coming for a visit. Thus, the size of the quilt is not that important.
- If you have a son, there is about an 80% chance that you will not even let him take his quilt out of the house until he is married. We have been doing this for a long time. Over and over Moms think that they will send the quilt to college with their sons and then call us to say that we were right, it is not going to the dorms.
- Some dorms don’t have the longer beds.
If you would like the quilt to fit a long dorm bed and be useful after dorm life, we suggest a quilt that is 80" x 88" (Estimated 35 to 45 T-shirts). This is long enough for a longer bed, but wide enough that it will be usable on other beds in the future.
In the chart below are several different quilt sizes superimposed on to each other. This may help you understand the sizes relative to one another. Compare the extra-long twin to the full-size quilt and you will get an idea about how narrow the extra-long twin quilt is.
Another way to determine what size quilt to make it to measures a blanket that you have and like the size of. We can then get close to that size. Do note that we work in increments of 4.
More about figuring the size of your quilt here.
If you have any questions about planning a graduation T-shirt quilt, email us. We are happy to help.
