I have discovered that simply by picking out single items from a stack of 3, example: cave clay, counts towards progression with that quest.
so the steps i took was,
1- i got a masonry quest to "acquire 2x cave clay".
2- i searched far and wide, but to no avail as of that day
3- i rummaged my co-villager's cupboard and found 4 stacks of 3 cave clay
4- hovering my mouse and picking one out OR hovering over the stack and scrolling to unstack gave me progression
5- Quest profit! i have now "acquired" 2 cave clay and the quest completes.
not knowing if this is intended ofc, might be a "feature" as they call it. but this might apply to all sorts of quests making it really easy to complete.