My sister has made many rag quilts-she begins by sewing each sandwich block in 1" that way when you sew the 1/2" seams you always have a 1/2" border around each block. She sews Xs, hearts, and swirls in the middle of the blocks. She use to clip the edges but she always felt they looked unfinished or if using all flannel it seemed to keep "shrinking" (unraveling)-and in a baby quilt that get's a lot of washing it can tend to look as if a rag rather than a quilt so she began putting on a binding so she felt it was finished. I made a rag quilt for her (a little bigger that a lap quilt) and left it unbound so if she wanted to add borders they could easily expanded.