As you say, Eddie, why I quilt is a combination of several reasons.
I love needlework and crafts.
I love the work of it, every stage except maybe pre-washing in the sink.
I love color, love to design, have come up with a pile of designs to quilt.
I'm unemployed and needed something new to do for my sanity. I was trying to make an art out of doing housework, but that just wasn't working, lol. (I still clean my house, but now I tell myself it's exercise.)
I found a beginner's quilting class that started when I needed a class to start. I'm always ready to learn new things in the spring and summer, which is just when most classes stop meeting. Had I found a woodworking class instead, I might be doing that now.
I had this idea that quilting would be an affordable hobby. It might be, if I stop buying fabric for anything but my current project. OTOH, a rotary cutter is more affordable than a rotary saw.
Along the same lines, I live in an apartment with carpeting. Picking up loose threads is easier than getting wood shavings out of carpet. Plus, you can't saw wood in bed (go ahead, laugh!), but you can quilt there.
Everything kind of came together to get me finally started quilting. I'd actually started a handpieced quilt top years ago in college but couldn't get my square esges to match and gave it up. This spring, I came across Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt novels and read them all, one right after another. In the first book, the process is described when Sylvia teaches Sarah to quilt. It sounded so doable, and I knew I wanted to learn exactly that way. So I took the only beginner class I could find to get some basics, and am now making a sampler quilt by hand, where my goal is to learn how to do each technique rather than to rush to finish it. Once I do, however, I have lots of other quilting projects I plan to do.
I'm enjoying everyone else's stories. Hope to see more!