I've been sewing for almost sixty years, but I always thought that making a quilt was a lifelong endeavor - something that took years to accomplish.
I made a couple of wholecloth quilts when my youngest child was born - I did free-motion quilting on them before I knew that there was such a thing, another example of how ignorant I was about all things quilting. My mother had given me her Golden Touch & Sew and I followed the instructions for darning.
Fifteen years later, I pieced my first quilts for two small grandchildren and I was
hooked.
Then I found Eleanor Burns' Quilt in a Day log cabin video. I made my in-laws a blue and white set for their anniversary. Quilt in a day? Really?
Well, no, not for a king sized bed, but it still only took me about a week. I pieced it on a 100-year old Singer 66 treadle and quilted it with decorative stitches on the seam lines with my 1956 Singer 401.
Side note: I'm not sure that you can tell the full story of quilting in the USA without a nod to Eleanor.
She took a lot of the old patterns from Kansas City Star and other sources and eliminated the templates - she made them rotary cuttable and chain-stitchable - she simplified and sped up the whole process. She made quilting accessible to beginners.
I came to this particular board because the people seemed encouraging, they were always ready to answer questions and they were fun. We had swaps, we had off-topic discussions to share our tragedies and triumphs, we showed our work and got acceptance and suggestions for finishing or displaying or fixing problem spots.
The "quilt police" are pretty much non-existent, (especially on this board) but it was a way to tell people that no one was going to take points off for cutting off their points or using some non-traditional technique.
As with any other art/craft, there used to be a tremendous amount of dogma surrounding the process. i.e.: Quilts must be hand pieced, hand quilted, hand bound, you must use 100% cotton fabric and batting, you must pre-wash, you must use a scant ¼" seam allowance, etc.
There is very little dogma on this board in regard to quilting, which makes it friendlier and more encouraging to all members.
What you will find quite quite a few of are "Quilt Inspectors" - the furry people who live in our homes and jump into the pictures we are taking to share our newly finished quilts.
Best of luck with your project!