I recently made a baby quilt for a friend of mine who is pregnant. It was a simple rail fence quilt with lots of neutral colours that really didnt take too long to make, but it was still a significant effort, as any quilt is.
I sent it to her and got back a letter (a hand written letter!) thanking me. In this letter she gushed how beautiful the quilt was and how she almost didnt want the baby playing wit it because it would get ruined.
I called her a few days later. I explained that I would be much happier if she brought the quilt back to me in few year to fix it because it was used and loved so much that it was falling apart than if it sat in a closet and ever got used. I told her that nothing would please me more than this quilt becomming the "blankie" for her child that would never want to part with it. To me, that's the kind of quilt that shows that it has been loved and cherished.
If I wanted to give something to someone that would remain pristine, it would be a wall quilt and not something like a baby quilt.