Anyone who’s been reading Make Modern for a while will know quilting has been a passion of mine for the best part of my adult life. It’s been the creative pursuit that’s provided me with so much wellbeing in times of stress. And when the fabric stacks and UFOs and WIPs are taking over, it’s been a cause of total overwhelm.

When that overwhelm hits and I’m lamenting why I can’t just be a one-project quilter, I’ve often joked that I have Quilter’s ADHD. Well, turns out I was right. Recently diagnosed, I’m one of the many middle-aged women who are joining the ranks of ‘late-diagnosed’ ADHDers, and with that comes a lot of research, reflection, and reframing.

Some of that reflection has included quilting. I now understand WHY I got so obsessed with quilting – ADHDers need creativity, constant challenges, and hobbies. Quilting sure ticks all those boxes!

Why Being an ADHD Quilter is Awesome

I always felt like creativity was one of my most valuable personality traits, and it turns out this is one of ADHDs greatest strengths. I wasn’t joking when I said I NEEDED to quilt. I feel so blessed that I discovered quilting at an early age and I’ve had such a great hobby to keep myself stimulated.

When I am stressed or overwhelmed I find that time spent in front of the sewing machine is never wasted. It’s always been my self-care practice, meditation and therapy. Turns out, as an ADHDer, I need both the creative outlet and a way to deal with the burnout and overwhelm.

ADHDers love things that create dopamine, and quilting fills that dopamine bucket over and over: fabric shopping, Pinterest boards, fabric pulls, finishing projects, gifting our work, scrolling social media, finding new patterns, starting new projects… there are plenty of opportunities to create quilty dopamine.

ADHDers love hyperfocus, which is when we focus intently on things that interest us, to the point where time stops, we forget to eat and we enter a creative superzone. ADHD quilters can be super-productive and efficient when they’re in this zone – which kinda explains why people would tell me I’m such a prolific quilter. It’s an awesome state that is great for an ADHDer’s mental health (not so good for the family who would like to eat dinner tonight).

Why Being an ADHD Quilter Sucks

Of course, being an ADHD Quilter is not without its drawbacks. ADHD is most likely the reason why my stash is overflowing with more fabric than I can realistically use in this lifetime. It’s why a fat quarter sale at the fabric store is a very bad place for me (hello, impulse buying!). And why I have more ideas in my head that I can ever turn into quilts. It’s why I am so excellent at starting new projects, and somewhat less excellent at finishing them.

For ADHDers, overwhelm is a real problem, and there have been many times when I have been completely overwhelmed and burnt out by this great hobby. I love being creative, but sometimes it just feels like too much. There are too many quilt design ideas, too many half-finished projects, too many sewalongs to lure me in, too many WIPs, and way too much fabric.

The pull of the new and shiny is REAL, as is the challenge of not finishing what you started. You canguess how that ends for quilters with ADHD. Starting things is fun! Then it gets boring – there wereplenty of times where I found certain stages of making a quilt boring, and wondered why, because it’sthe hobby I love so much. Then there are stumbling blocks, like basting (hello, giant stack of quilt tops).Staying on top of the WIP pile is a real challenge.

Strategies for ADHD Quilters

One of the things I’m learning about ADHD is that it’s all about tailoring strategies to work the way yourbrain works. Medication is also awesome for helping you focus and getting on with things. Here are some ideas for managing your quilting if you have ADHD:

Understand Why: When you recognise you have ADHD and start looking at things through that lens, it becomes much easier to understand why you do things a certain way. All the unfinished projects and stacks of fabric suddenly make so much more sense.

Set a Timer: Timers are great for keeping time real (a hard concept for ADHDers). If you really don’t want to do something, set a timer for 15 minutes and tell yourself you’ll just work on it a little bit. If you’ve got real world commitments, set a timer to remind yourself to step away from the sewing machine

Don’t Forget: You need to eat, drink, move and pee. Hyperfocus is great and all, but the ability to completely forget your body needs certain things is real. Make sure you take regular breaks to get up and stretch, fill up your water bottle, grab a high protein snack and take a bathroom break.

Set up a Distraction: Often, ADHDers focus better and work longer when there’s something else to focus on. For me, this means music or an audiobook. Some people love to binge their favourite TVseries or catch up on podcasts.

Remove the Temptation: If you have issues with shopping, or starting more projects than you can ever finish, then remove yourself from email lists. What you don’t know won’t hurt you, and all that. If you really need to shop, fill the cart and don’t check out – this provides a dopamine kick without the guilt over the credit card statement.

Understand Perfectionism: Perfectionism is a curse for many ADHDers and it can make starting anew project daunting, cause us to spend too much time unpicking or rearranging, or make us put projects aside. Acknowledging this goes a long way to fixing the problem.

Keep it Clean: Have a place for everything in your sewing space. Create a fabric organisation system that works for you. Make sure your sewing room doesn’t become a dumping ground for things that belong in other parts of the house.

Develop a Tracking System: Find a quilt tracking system that helps you organise your projects, and celebrate your finishes. You just need to remember to write in it.

Give Yourself Grace: We beat ourselves up over the mess, over not being able to finish things, over having so much focuson a task we enjoy that we forget important appointments, over losing supplies, over completely forgetting that entire projects exist.

This is an extract from The ADHD Quilter by Jane Kelly. Read the full article in Make Modern Issue #62.

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