The comforter on our queen bed is wearing out. I am designing a quilt (Native American) to replace it. I have the main part designed to the measurements of the mattress. How far down should the sides and end hang??? Our bed is on a wood platform now and if and when we ever move into a regular abode, I will use a bed shirt.

You can make the borders as wide as you want. The quilt on my bed has 12in borders.

Not sure with a wood platform, but on a regular bed, I like the quilt to hang a few inches below the top of the boxspring.

I like to make sure there is enough quilt to cover the people in the bed! I added enough to our queen size so there is no more cover stealing! You have got to consider that people are not "flat", they have depth, you know! :)

Yes you don't want it too short. Needs to be long enough to cover whoever is using it. I have enough cover snatching in my bed.

and dont forget, quilting takes up width and length too! And it doesn
t mean a lot of quilting either!! I made a quilt for a queen size, had the size exactly where I wanted it to hit at the sides and end of my mattress, and after quilting, it is only big enough for a full size bed.

You might try draping a flat sheet over your bed and then adjusting the sheet to see how much hang looks good to you. Then measure the sheet from the middle of the bed to the end of the sheet at the side and double the measurement. That will give you a pretty close side to side measurement.