Okay, this baffled me for a long time. I guess it baffled the ladies too, until they were working on the quilt, because the sewing machine seams do NOT go through to the front. The backing piece was taken from something else, which had been well used. The repairs were done to it BEFORE it was quilted in. The backing is in 2 large pieces (common for the day). As I said, this quilt was a everyday quilt, to use every scrap of fabric they had.