My family and friends are simply not very interested in quilts.
I remember years back when the Japanese wife of one of my husband's co-workers gifted me with a wall picture she had made. The craft involves carefully cutting up greeting cards and then painstakingly gluing them at different heights to re-create the picture with dimension. I was stunned by the amount of work that went into this picture. However, the nature of the picture (old-fashioned children playing in front of a cottage) was *completely* out-of-keeping with our tastes in home decor (I have to hold my husband back from buying only stainless steel and glass furniture). There was no place I could really place this picture, which held no meaning for anyone in the family. It was really sad, but I ended up donating it.
Given my experience and the understanding that my family members really do not appreciate quilts, I make only quilts that I enjoy making. A lot are currently UFO's. Of the finished ones, some I keep and some I give to charity. I want to leave behind some of my favorite quilts because my bet is that my family members will one day cherish them as memories of me. And I am making a few that can be used for grandchildren some day (assuming I ever have any!).
I think it's fine to make quilts simply for the pleasure of making them, and it's fine to simply make quilts for charity. I'm a big one for *buying* shower and wedding gifts (or giving cash). If someone wants a special quilt for a wedding or new baby, they can ask me. Or, as someone else mentioned, if someone comes over and loves a quilt hanging around in my house, I would consider gifting them with it.
Personally, I don't want to put a lot of creative energy into a quilt or wallhanging only to find it used for a dog bed by the recipient. If that happens, I have to consider that it was *my* mistake to gift them so inappropriately in the first place. If it happens once, okay. It's not going to happen again, and it's not going to happen routinely to me because I'm not going to assume people who don't understand quilts are going to cherish a quilt made by me. I'd rather have my quilts go to auction and be purchased by someone who loves them.