Sounds pretty simple! Somewhere I saw a tip that said to serge the cut ends together, but then you'd have to cut off the serging. Just snipping a corner makes so much more sense! That reminds me of a funny laundry story. My DH's broken hand is still healing, and he has to wear a splint that is attached with an elastic bandage, which gets washed with his clothes b/c it gets really dirty, really fast. The other day he needed his work clothes clean, so he washed them and loaded them in the dryer. Apparently a shirt tail or sleeve caught on the door latch unnoticed. I heard the dryer shut off after a few minutes and went to see why, and found the whole load of clothes twisted into a rope and bound up with that elastic bandage! It took both of us several minutes to untangle the mess and get the dryer going again! It's nice that he wants to help but sometimes it's easier to just do things myself! Donna

Huge hint - if you plan to use flannel on back and middle with cotton fabric on top, prewash your flannel first because when it shrinks, it will shrink at a different rate than the cotton top and you will end up with a poofy quilt top. I know this first hand. You still should be able to get a ragged edge using the prewashed flannel since the edges will be in the exposed seams. I love using flannel in the middle bc I cut all three layers the same size and don't have to sew the X in the center. I just catch all three layers in the seams. Makes it a bit bulkier at some points but I saved time not having to mess with the X. It can be done with good results, but my biggest suggestion would be to preshrink your flannel first IF you are using cotton fabric on top. If you are using flannel on all three layers, then I wouldn't bother with the prewashing and let it all shrink together. Hope that helps. SY Here is a link that might be useful:

Well, I firmly believe in prewashing for a couple of reasons. The main one is that I have seen some disastrous things happen to quilts in terms of bleeding fabrics. One of the worst was a quilt that I finished hand-quilting for a friend and then she asked me to wash it for her. The rust colored fabric bled like crazy in COLD water! It took dozens of rinses with dye catcher sheets before that rust dye quite bleeding into the white sections of the quilt. I have a fabric in the sink right now that's on it's fourth run through and still bleeding like crazy. Can you imagine what all that black dye would do to a quilt? Secondly, because I often use lots of fabrics from lots of different fabric lines in the same quilt, I want everything preshrunk because they will all shrink at different rates: from hardly at all up to 5%. (And sometimes more if it was loosely woven to begin with.) Most of my quilts end up as gifts and I need to know that when they are washed, no matter what the temperature, both the color and the size will stay constant. And don't forget about your battings. Cotton and cotton-blend battings do shrink, so if you want your quilt to stay crisp looking, you will need to preshrink your battings, too. I personally like the crinkly vintage look that I get when I use an unshrunk batting and I think that the quilt ends up a bit softer, but for wallhangings, I usually preshrink and I definitely preshrink batting for quilts that are designated for shows. Concerning blocking: Yes, when you quilt, especially if you put in a lot of thread, things can get out of square and change size on you. If possible leave yourself an extra inch in the final border to allow you to square things as much as possible by trimming. Then plan to block the finished project. However, while blocking is good, but it can't work miracles. Slight skewing can be corrected by blocking, but, no you can't pull fabrics that have shrunk during washing back to their original size. When washing a quilt that contains fabrics that haven't been prewashed, be sure to use cold water for both washing and rinsing. The temperature change from warm or hot to cold induces shrinkage, as does the heat of your dryer, so you will want to dry it flat and lightly block it. This is why you may even notice some fabrics shrink when you press them, especially if you use steam or starch. For blocking: I pin small projects to my design wall, which is uncovered styrofoam insulation board, and let them dry that way. It does make for a nice, square project. I use a big carpenter's square to get things lined up right and then point a fan at them to get the air moving and speed up the process. Annie

I never prewash for rag quilts. I want that wash to help fray the edges which is why I make them. If prewashed, they don't fray as much. I prewash for standard pieced things. Linda