I clip corners and put that size pieces in a mesh bag and have very little trouble. Bigger pieces don't seem to ravel that much but I also do them on a very gentle hand wash cycle on my washer and I throw in 1/2 a color catcher if it is only one piece and sometimes just a 1/4 piece--depending on how big the piece is. I do it for safety as I have had problems with some fabrics. I recently washed all the pastel fabrics in a quilt I am going to be working on and lo and behold if the yellow wasn't picked up on the color catcher. Didn't go into the whites on the pin dots or other pieces.