For me it's sort of a family legacy. Both of my grandmothers were avid quilters - very different styles but they were both very prolific and generous with their creations. My whole family grew up surrounded by handmade quilts. Both of my grandmothers died (coincidentally just a couple months apart) when I was in my early 20's, and nobody else in the family was a quilter, so that was "lost" to our family. Six years later, my sister got pregnant and I was determined that her baby would have a handmade quilt, so I fired up all my memories of what I'd seen my grandmothers do over the years and made her son a quilt. I made a thousand and one mistakes, but I got it made and now her son is nearly 15 and the quilt is still (mostly) intact, so I guess I didn't do TOO bad.
I still didn't really get into quilting but that put the idea in the back of my head. Four years later my niece was born, and I made my 2nd quilt, and that got me more interested in it. I started gathering fabrics to make a quilt for myself and started piecing it together...that quilt took me 3 years to finish! That third quilt seemed to be the one that got me hooked, though - I started watching YouTube videos and buying modern quilting supplies (my first 3 quilts were made with scissors and cardboard templates because that's what gran did!) and reading quilting blogs and books...and the rest is history!
Now I've been entrusted with my late grandmother's handmade dresses - my aunt saved them all these years and has asked me to make them into quilts for the family. Thirty floral dresses, and my gran was not a small lady so there is a lot of fabric there! My gran had 8 children - I think I have enough fabric to make a good sized throw quilt for all 7 of my aunt & uncles. The 8th quilt would be for my dad, but he has passed away...I've decided that if there's enough fabric for an 8th quilt I will make it and keep it for myself, maybe to eventually pass along to my niece or nephew if they're interested when they're older.