Like Aurora I have great memories of my Grannie pieceing using a cardboard or paper template. I have some of those cardboard templates and you can see the many pencil marks she made tracing the pattern. I also have some of the original Kansas City Star newspaper clippings from the 1930's. They mention the 1/4" allowance. Besides conserving material I also believe this was done so that when quilting there is not so many layers to quilt through since a lot of the quilting was done 1/4" in from the seam. A lot of those vintage quilts were quilted at Quilting Bees or community quilt groups and there had to be some consistency. The "Quilt Police" probably did not exist back in the day because women did not have the internet to tell them they had to do something. This reminds me of a woman I met who did Swedish Weaving like I do and the woman who taught her told her she could only use Red Heart yarn. Actually you can use any brand you want.