For me, just one. When I see a pattern that I like, I spend as much time (and money) as it takes to obtain that one pattern. Even if I never get around to actually doing it, I will have the pattern, just in case. I just bought a small quilt on ebay, that I fully intend to cut down to make an exact copy ( didn't like the colors, but I did like the quilt) I have bought a multitude of back copies of magazines just to get a specific pattern. At this moment, I have 5 notebooks of patterns. I know that in my lifetime, I will never make all of them, but when I die, maybe someone else will like my patterns as much as I do. A few times, I actually got more than 1 pattern, but my primary goal was just one at the time.