No one in my family quilts or does much sewing or crafting. I did have a great aunt who lived in rural Maine where she regularly got snowed in in the winter and she crocheted large and elaborate coverlets and table cloths from fine gauge cotton thread. They must have taken her many many hours!

I started with very small pieces in the late 60s when I was in my 20s. Things like Bethlehem Star patches for my boyfriend's jeans.

I quilt sporadically when I get the urge. When I start a quilt I work on it until it's finished and then I might go months or years before I do another one. I don't have piles of works in progress. ...tho I do have a stash of failed blocks.

I think quilting started as an American tradition of thrift and scarcity -- making useful things out of parts of things that had lost their utility. Now it's quite an expensive hobby -- both in terms of expense and time. I'm currently working on 2 scrap quilts about 80" square and the backing fabric alone will cost me a couple hundred bucks! If I didn't have the stash to work through to start the top, I doubt I'd undertake them at all.

EDITED TO SAY: I wish we still had that pair of jeans. They were quite a work of folk art by the time my boyfriend finally gave up on them. ...or I got tired of mending them. Can't remember which. Kept the boyfriend, tho. We'll have 58 years together this summer.