I just sewed the seam regularly so that the ragged edges were all on the same side. Thus one side is ragged and the other is smooth.
I was given a pair of Fiskars rag snips for helping someone at a quilt retreat. I wish I had them for my first rag quilts! I have arthritis in my hands and it used to take forever to snip those seams ragged. Had to do one piece of material at a time. Well, with the Fiskars I could actually do all ragged edges at once ... that is 4 layers thick!
I took my finished quilt to the laundromat to get wet and then put in their drier without heat to get the excess threads out. It was worth it. Those quilts do get heavy when wet and I surely didn't want to hurt my own drier. When the quilt was almost finished with de-threading I put the heat on for the drier.
ali