Our entire family was blessed with quilts from my grandmother made this way. Since we sewed our own clothes, there were odd shaped scraps left and she USED them. She started with an old sheet as foundation, started laying out the crazy pieces from the corners in to the center. It was all done by hand. She did the herring bone stitch in crochet cotton to hold the folded edge of the next piece over the previous piece placed down before it. (does that make sense?) She sorted her fabrics - so there were some quilts made of corduroy or doubleknit polyester. Those were heavy enough not to need batting once a heavy duty backing was added. My daughter still uses the cotton and cotton blend polyester one of flower prints on her bed. My mother brought us that quilt top after my grandmother died. Mom offered to handquilt if I sandwiched it with batting and backing. It was big stitch quilting an inch in from the edge of each piece. The hard part came when I was trying to square it up for binding. My mother and I would run one side along the edge of the ping pong table and then wonder how much we'd have to cut of the other 3 sides to make 90 degree angles on it. We laughed so much, that my father, the electrical engineer had to come "help". He too threw up his hands, but we finally accomplished the impossible. My daughter makes me repair the patches that are worn every so often. Yep - Grandma's generation never threw anything out.