My teacher in the quilting class I took explained the 'probable' reason for the 1/4 inch or scant 1/4 inch seams in quilting. Clothing construction usually uses 5/8 seams but that is a lot of bulk when you begin joining many points and corners together. Also, since most quilts were hand quilted not so long ago, and cotton batting was used, the quilting lines had to be closer together to hold the batting in place. The scant 1/4 inch seam allowed for running a line of stitching just 1/4 inch from each pieced seam without having to stitch through all those extra layers. Since I am a hand quilter, that makes sense to me.