What is Quilt Therapy?

Quilt Therapy is pretty tricky to define, but most people I talk to, when I mention “quilt therapy”, intuitively know what I mean. Quilting is a creative, fairly repetitive art form or craft form, and Quilt Therapy is about using this craft as a way of working through emotional or mental health issues. It’s not as serious as it sounds, really, as so many people already use quilting as therapy. Often quilters will focus their energy, well-wishes and emotions on the creation of a quilt for someone else, whether it be a loved one or a charity in memory of someone who has died. Often people will meet up with others and do quilting in social groups, which can be therapeutic in itself. Connecting with others is incredibly precious. What makes my idea different is that I want to encourage quilters to express their emotions, their issues, by creating their own quilts just for themselves. Just to express what is going on for them. Through expressing things that they find difficult to say in words, quilting can be a therapeutic process.

I have been putting some of my ideas up on Facebook and seeing what people are most interested in. Some of the entries are fairly gentle cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) interventions and others are new ideas I am trying out.
My take on quilting and mental wellbeing is this. The act of making a quilt, from the planning, to the preparation, selection of materials, cutting and sewing and finally quilting, is creative but also repetitive. When an individual’s mind takes off in uncontrollable flights of anxiety or depression or grief, making a quilt redirects and soothes the mind in a safe, predictable way.

Quilting is meditation for people who can’t sit still to meditate.

Anyone can be involved in quilt therapy. Just email me or get involved through the Facebook page www.facebook.com/pages/Quilt-Therapy.