How Many Yards In A Bolt of Fabric: A Complete Guide

Running out of fabric before completing your project is a complete turn-off. If you are on a sewing project, you would like to buy yourself enough pieces of fabric. For that, you need to know your cloth yardage and enter a fabric store.

As you step in, a vast fabric collection wrapped around a cardboard bolt comes to your vision. You’ll find clothes stay arranged right on racks or shelves draped in bolts. Then you need to make sure you own enough fabric for your project.

How Many Yards In A Bolt of Fabric

So, how many yards in a bolt of fabric can you get? Normally, you’ll find a bolt of wrapped fabric holds between 30 and 100 yards. But the yardage differs as you pick a diverse material. Measuring the fabric, you can limit your required yardage from cloth even before buying. Hence, you’ll never fall short on material.

Standing amid the rolls and bolts, you might be excited. But it can be intimidated at the same time if you aren’t aware of bolts or their measurements. Well, we have the key to your issue.

That’s why we’re here to pave your way to our complete guide about fabric bolts and their measurements. Let’s get you into the world of fabric bolts step by step!

What is A Bolt of Fabric?

Yes, you’re right. Fabrics are primarily sold in bolts. You must be wondering what a bolt of cloth refers exactly. Let’s feed your curious mind before diving deep inside the measurement sections.

What is A Bolt of Fabric

Well, a bolt is simply a standard unit of measurement. It’s used commercially for selling a variety of materials like wood or canvas and manufactured fabric. You’ll figure its highly flexible dimensions depend on your demand of cloth size, thickness, and quality.

Now, sellers in the store pleat the fabric half and keep spiraling around flat cardboard as a center core. It’s no big deal to estimate the quantity of fabric wounded in the bolt by counting the layers.

As a fabric enthusiast, you must be willing to know more about bolts and rolls. So, we bring more details. Many persons think rolls and bolts mean the same. But the fact states they differ in terms of folding method and usage.

How is Fabric Folded on A Bolt?

The width you pick out from a folded bolt is not the actual width of the fabric. It’s because the cloth stays folded half the way in the bolt. So, you basically can see half the width of the garb.

How is Fabric Folded on A Bolt

However, folding and draping around the bolts depend on the material of the fabric too. For instance, in the case of woolen cloth, the pleats move on to the right side and go inside the folds consequently.

On the contrary, it’s folded precisely the other side for cotton garbs. Sometimes, you may find a few mends on the fabric. It’s a manufacturer’s trick to hide the bumpiness.

They fold the cloth around the bolt in such a way keeping the flaw to the wrong side. You’re sure to know about selvages, the self-finished edges of the fabric. Well, fabric workers wrap these salvages in a similar way parallel to the bolt.

How Many Yards in A Bolt of Fabric?

A bolt is nothing but a unit to measure the fabric wrapped in the bolt. Whether you’re an expert or amateur artisan in this field, you need a perfect idea of the yardage of your cloth. 

How Many Yards On a Bolt of Fabric

It’s because you don’t want to buy fabric not enough for your project and fall short on material. Otherwise, your project will ruin in no time. Or, you can’t even afford to buy an extremely long piece of cloth and waste your earned money.

That’s when you start grasping the idea, how much cloth is draped all over one bolt. Let’s break the ice for you.

Usually, you’ll find a bolt of wrapped fabric holds in textile measuring between 30 and 100 yards. But note that this yardage depends on a variety of factors in question. Such as:

  • The type of the fabric
  • The material of the cloth
  • The thickness of your piece of fabric

For example, if you measure a bolt of the canvas, it’s seen to be 39 yards. A little less than usual, right? But for silk, the bolt will be 40 yards, and that of cotton must be 100 yards.

Again, thick materials offer less yardage length compare to the thinner ones. It’s because it’s hard to wrap as many times the thick ones in the bolt. So, denim may feel short when measured in yards. 

And that’s the opposite case with cotton or Lycra. However, the dimension or width of the material in no way affects the yards wrapped in a bolt.  

How Big is A Bolt of Fabric?

Let’s put an answer to your raveling thoughts about how big a bolt wrapped with fabric can seem. Well, though the bolt is a constant unit, its size is not always the same. You’ll see the matter of size relies on two things.

How Big is A Bolt of Fabric

The first factor is the type of material. Bolts can be of cotton, wool, silk, linen, Lycra, or any other. Depending on your picked type of material, you will pull off a different size of bolts.

Again, the next size decisive factor is the amount or volume of fabric. The more is the length of the fabric you’re holding, the wider will be the bolt size. You must be knowing that.

But if you measure throughout the bolts having the same diameter, you’ll find the size consistent. Let’s clear out the fog with some examples. 

Suppose you have a bolt draped with the fabric having a diameter of ¼ inches. So, it must tread ¾ inches in length when it’s 6″ or shorter. Otherwise, it should be 1″ when it’s 6″ or longer.

So, width is a crucial key to determine its largeness. Isn’t it? As a result, you’re sure to notice that the vastness of one bolt varies from the other ones. 

How Wide is A Bolt of Fabric?

It’s no new deal that skilled craft persons or designers often think of its width walking past the bolts. Well, a usual bolt measures 45 inches (110 cm) or 60 inches (150 cm).

How Wide is A Bolt of Fabric

However, it can be wide enough, starting from 35 inches and ending at 108 inches. If you tend to purchase a cotton bolt, you’re sure to figure out it’s about 42 inches (1.067 m) in width.

When in fact, the woolen bolt would be broader, not more than 60 inches (1.524 m). So, we bet you see the difference.

It’s all because the type of fabric you’re using highly affects the width of your desired fabric bolt. Bolt width for a specific material is constant. You better mark that.

The standard measurements include (in inches): 36 (91.44 cm), 39 (99.06 cm), 41 (104.14 cm), 42 (106.68 cm), 44 (111.76 cm), 45 (114.3 cm), 48 (121.92 cm), 52-54 (132.08-137.16 cm), 58-60 (147.32-152.4 cm), 72-108 (182.88-274.32 cm).

The most common widths among the mentioned ones are 45 inches, 54 inches, and 60 inches. So, the width of the bolt is crucial to decide how much fabric you’ll need in yards to finish your pattern. By now, you must’ve understood.

How Long is A Bolt of Fabric?

Dimensions! Yes, going in the right direction with bolt folded in fabric starts with measurements. The moment you grasp, you barely know how long one bolt contains your cloth; you fail in the task of accuracy.

And no accuracy means no great art. You must be knowing that. Hence, it’s vital to book in mind space for measurements you need, and a fabric bolt can give you.

How Long is A Bolt of Fabric

Let’s make it one step more manageable for you. Well, as we’ve dug in before, a bolt of cloth is 40-100 in yards or 37-91 in meters. A standard chart of bolt length suggests it’s 40 or 100 yards.

But you’ll see lengths may fluctuate a bit for different materials, fabric or may vary for thickness, quality, quantity, and manufacturing process.

Here’s a chart showing how the length of the bolt varies with the type of cloth you use:

Type of material in boltLength of fabric
Canvas39 yards (35.6 m)
Cotton100 yards (91.44 m)
Silk40 yards (36.576 m)

How to Measure A Bolt of Fabric?

The good news for all craft persons, artisans, and designers is here. If you sneak peek a little at the bolt of fabric, you can catch a glimpse of a small label on top of it. 

And the label states all you need to measure is any bolt of cloth starting from the length, width, material type, and so on. But each bolt in every fabric shop may not come with a label attached. 

How to Measure A Bolt of Fabric

What an irony! In that case, what you can opt for is the assistance of the workers there. As you ask for help, the girl from the cutting table will arrive, untie each fold, and measure them one by one.

Ugh! It would take an eternity for sure. Hence, it’s the option suitable for you if you’re running out of time. Chances are higher that most people do the same time-consuming thing. 

If both label and measuring assistance don’t stand a chance for you, the task might seem intimidating. How to measure then? Well, our guide is right here for your big rescue. 

As you roll over your eyes in agony, you see a hashtag right on the wooden surface. It tells you all the crucial things in detail. You learn about the bolt in terms of measurements and all.

Labels and hashtags function the same way. You can count them as alternatives. Now you can proceed with calculating the layers of your fabric to measure the yardage of the bolt. 

Remember bolts in yards measure almost half the number of layers of fabric in case of medium to heavy material. For instance, if you have such a bolt containing 60 layers, it means the total yardage would measure around 30 yards.

Burlap and cotton are medium or heavy materials. But when it’s about fabric like silk or lace, you’ll figure out that three layers of draped cloth would measure around a yard. 

So, that’s how you can measure bolts of any fabric. But these tricks apply to rectangular bolts only!

How Much is A Bolt of Fabric?

Well, the average price of one yard of fabric is somewhat between $15 and $50. However, the answer to your query is something that’s not specific. 

How Much is A Bolt of Fabric

The price of a bolt of any cloth varies depending on a number of considerations, as said earlier. You’ll see the reasons could be size, quality, quantity, and manufacturer as well.

If a manufacturer is using a premium quality raw material, the price can notably bump up. In addition to that, the bolts imported from different countries cost much more than the local ones. Isn’t it obvious?

Final Words

When buying or selling fabrics to deal correctly, you need to gain adeptness on all the related things. Otherwise, a slight mistake can ruin your entire project. Knowing about a bolt of fabric will come in handy indeed. 

Our guide here ensures you leave no room for error and spare yourself all the hassles of buying fabric with wrong measurements. Starting from concepts to dimensions to affordability, it manages all for you as a master in the world of fabric bolts.

So before you leap ahead with your task, don’t forget to read it all and save your time and effort!

Hello there! I’m Jessica, I'm a textile engineer and mom of two little boys. When I’m not playing with my kids, you’ll find me researching and writing for Fabrichow.

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