Which Style Of Quilt Is Best, boxed or channel?
We get asked which style of quilt is best, channel or boxed? We recommend channel style quilts in the cotton japara range. Why? Channel style quilts were some of the first feather and down quilts sold in Australia and for good reason. With Australia's diverse weather a quilt needs to be multi purpose. It needs to be ideal for Winter and Summer use. A channel quilt allows the user to adjust the warmth as needed all year round. Simply push or shake filling down for Summer and push or shake the filling back up again for Winter. The other benefit is if the quilt is too warm or not warm enough filling can be taken out to make it provide less warmth or filling can be added to make it warmer.
In any quilt gravity will feed filling towards the end of the bed, if this happens in a channel quilt it once again is easy to push or shake the filling back again.
While we sell boxed style quilts we generally dont recommend them. Why? Boxed quilts dont offer any flexibility, if its too warm or not warm enough it cant be changed. When filling moves and it will, you cant push or shake it back again. How does filling move in a boxed quilt? Surprisingly very easily. When boxed quilts are made, they are made with a small gap, approximately 5-6cm wide that run down each row of squares. The gaps are there so filling can be blown into each square. Unfortunately because there are so many squares (as an example a king size has 56 squares), sewing each on off would be very time consuming if it were even possible to get a full fluffy quilt under a sewing machine.
As mentioned before, in any quilt gravity will feed filling towards the end of the bed. This wont change in a boxed quilt, it will still move, feeding through the gaps towards the end. Once the filling accumulates at the end you wont be able to push or shake it back again. This can happen within 3 months in some cases, basically leaving you sleeping under a sheet.
To help keep filling in place better in any quilt we suggest to rotate it every 2 weeks. Usually when you change the quilt cover just flip the quilt over so the bottom of the quilt is at the top and the top is now at the bottom. This will not only create even wear it will also help prevent gravity playing its roll, it will help hold the filling in place better. There is no guarantee the filling wont move but it will help.
This is not to say that some people that use boxed quilts have no problems what so ever, but if you want our expert advise combined with over 27 years of experience we recommend the channel quilt.
