Lovely thread - thanks for sharing! I honestly don't know why I always wanted to make a quilt, but I always have. Possibly because my mother and older sister sewed (not quilts- I don't remember ever even seeing a quilt!)
For years I collected ideas, but had no skills on how to make a quilt. I had some handsewing skills from my mother ( who never let me touch her machine) and I remember when I was about four years old we were learning to sew in school ( as you did, back then - it was the early 70s). I thought to myself- "well - when the teacher asked us to do a row of tacking, she did not know I can already do that stuff, so I will do something else!" You know that did not end well. I remember cutting out a square of pink felt and placing it on point on my scrap, attaching it with coloured stitches. I think I even managed a button in the middle! My teacher ridiculed me and the way I felt at that moment has fueled my determination to never let anyone else tell me that what I like to do is wrong, or ugly, or anything other than a joyful expression of my love of life!
Sadly it did not help me to walk before I run, and I am still taking up 'too hard' projects 40 years later. That's me. I still have not made a fullsize quilt, but have got great joy making smaller quilts.