Quilts and coverlets show up constantly in the inns and country houses across the pages of AD. A patchwork quilt at the foot of a guest bed, an overshot weave, or a kantha quilt folded over a bedroom bench all give a layered, vintage feel to a bedroom, and add visual texture.
The lineup in this story helps give a flat bedscape some texture, whether you are replacing a comforter set entirely or layering over duvet covers you already own. The materials toggle between light matelassé to more substantial silk. Our editors reviewed all of our picks and considered them for every season. Because quilts usually sit between a top sheet and a comforter in weight, a good one can carry you through most of the year with a duvet added or removed as the weather shifts, rather than a full bedding swap every three months. A few of these come with, or have, a matching pillow sham, so a complete set can style your bed in one fell swoop. Read on for our tested favorites.
Our Top Picks
Best Linen Quilt
A mid-weight linen quilt might seem like it will keep things a little too toasty, but contributor Megan Wahn disagrees. This one is “filled with polyester to give it a loft that’s reminiscent of a comforter, making it a great happy medium to those committed to the duvet or comforter life,” she says. “The weight combined with the smooth linen makes the quilt feel like a sigh of comfort I never want to leave.” It comes in 20 colors ranging from the lightest blush to the deepest blues, so it’s sure to complement the rest of the bedding. Made from European flax, it arrives supersoft and a little worn in, so there’s no off-gassing or starchiness to endure.
Best Light Coverlet
As plums go, this is the brownest plum I’ve ever seen, which is fine by me because I wanted a brown coverlet. I picked this piece for testing a pared-back, monochromatic bedscape, all chocolate brown with a single bolster in place of a pile of decorative pillows, and needed something lighter than her duvet. Paired with a flat sheet, it was the right summer setup: I slept neither hot nor cold. My one complaint is that I find it hard to sleep without some weight, and this coverlet is light, though I won’t fault a breathable fabric for being breezy. The cotton was soft out of the box, and the waffle weave adds texture across the bed. As fall turns its head, I’m pairing it with a striped sheet set and layering a striped quilt over it for more visual depth.
Best Reversible Quilt Set
Shopping editor Audrey Lee has long admired Ellen Van Dusen’s work, and after testing a lot of bedding, she ranks this check coverlet among her favorites. Because the pattern carries the bed on its own, she pairs it with simple linen sheets, though the brand’s patterned bed sheets would work too. The coverlet is light and airy through spring and summer, and on cooler nights she adds a fuzzy throw blanket on top. The checkerboard reads as an update on a classic motif rather than a novelty, and the matching pillow shams pull the bed together. The cotton was soft out of the bag and came out of the wash softer and gauzier.
Best Organic Quilt
Contributor Kate McGregor says this quilt has “the softness of a weathered cotton without the 17 trips through the washing machine to get there.” The hand-stitched lines are thick and obviously made by hand, which she counts in its favor. Plus, the quilt is reversible: floral on one side, pinstripe on the other. It fits comfortably within cottagecore and farmhouse styling, and it gives McGregor’s new-build bedroom some character. It has also become her nap blanket on the sofa, where it stands in for a throw blanket thanks to the breathable and slightly weighty organic cotton. Over time, a few of the hand stitches have loosened, though not enough to affect the quilt’s durability. She’d steer modernists and anyone after a true patchwork Americana quilt elsewhere.
Best Silky Quilt
"Someway, somehow, this silky blanket finds its way on my bed year-round," says senior shopping editor Nashia Baker. She got the blanket last summer looking for a thin, cooling layer for the humid Brooklyn summer, and it delivered. What surprised her was how great of an addition it was in the winter: she layered over her duvet and it added warmth without making her sweaty. “It has the heft that I want in a quilt—I feel held but not weighed down,” Baker says. Sateen-style pieces often go matte in the wash or with use, but after a year of testing, she finds it’s still silky and has gotten softer. One caution: her nighttime skincare can leave marks on the terra-cotta colorway, though they wash out with gentle detergent.
Best Matelassé Coverlet
Matelassé, from the French for “padded,” is a double weave that creates a raised, quilted look without any actual padding, so you get volume without bulk. Madison Flager, commerce director at CNT, tested this matelassé bedspread for us and found it “low-maintenance, simple." She says it would "look at home in a New England boutique hotel.” Flager adds that it’s ideal for spring and fall, but a bit too heavy for intense summer heat.
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Best Scalloped Coverlet
“As a crafter who always values the handmade, I admire the fine quilt stitching,” says Diane Dragan, global director of content strategy and operations. The cotton voile is smooth and cool to the touch, and the hand quilting adds texture without reading homespun. The scallops, trimmed in taupe on her white version, look graphic rather than sweet, and she thinks it would suit plenty of rooms beyond the cottage-style ones. It kept her cool on warm summer nights and has added welcome weight as early fall sets in. The handwork she likes is also why she’s careful with it: she pulls it back before sitting on the bed to avoid friction, and notes that the white colorway and the stitching might need extra attention in a house with kids or pets. In Dragan’s first couple of months with it, she says it’s held up without loose threads.
How We Chose
There are a few brands our team always reaches for when testing bedding, on account of their durability, versatility, and the simple fact that we trust them to make a good product. Several of those brands are here, namely Coyuchi and Parachute. But this list also brought out a few new contenders, including Morrow Soft Goods, whose bedding satisfies our sometimes hyper-specific searches, such as a search for a large, dark chocolate, textured coverlet that turned up the Emmanuella. Dusen Dusen and Kassatex bring pattern and scallops, and Luxome delivers a silky bamboo option. We’re very committed to getting a sense of which brands are making great products, and those on this list are editor-vetted favorites.
How We Tested
Our picks are all reviewed by AD editors and contributors. Picks that didn’t make the cut tended to be less accessible for the average budget, less breathable, or harder to clean. Over the years, we’ve also delisted picks that went out of stock, came from brands that were unreliable with stock, or didn’t hold up well after successive washes, a factor we keep in mind as we update this list.
Sleep is such a subjective experience that it’s tough to crown any one bed cover, or even a small crop of them, as the best for every sleeper on the planet. But for a range of editors and contributors at AD, certain qualities felt universal. We tested these for about a month or more to get a sense of how they feel to sleep under. From there, testers aimed to run them through the wash at least once to see how they hold up. Our list has also gone through several rounds of edits, and notes on durability have continued to come in since.
We had sleepers of all sorts test these coverlets, bedspreads, and quilts for hand-feel, assessing how each piece feels against the body or straight out of the box, and whether it is soft or coarse to the touch. Testers also evaluated breathability, noting how well the material breathes and whether it causes overheating at night, particularly with lighter materials like gauze and voile that serve well for summer layering or winter duvet additions.
We leaned into cotton options, like organic cotton from Coyuchi, which in our testing tends to be the most breathable, durable, soft, and comfortable year-round material while holding up well in the wash without shrinking, pilling, tearing, or showing excessive wear. Luxome’s bamboo viscose blanket stands as the sole exception, included because it successfully endured a year of testing. We also chose exclusively machine-washable quilts so they function as practical bed additions rather than strictly decorative pieces, ensuring they withstand normal maintenance without fraying, staining easily, or losing their luster after a single spin cycle.
