hi justwannaquilt,
I made the quilt, clothes, hats, shoes etc. for my granddaughter, she just turned 5. It is adorable!!! I didn't really think too much about fraying, but it could be an issue, I think I might stitch all around the items, straight stitch all around, or narrow zigzag. You could also do a satin stitch, I don't care for that one. A friend told me to make sure the fusible fleece was on tight, so after I cut out all the pieces I repressed all of the items to make sure fleece was adhered firmly.
I followed the magazine directions but made the doll and background portion a little smaller so there would be less other stuff in the corners i.e. another dolls hair, arm, foot whatever. I did have some concerns and disappointments: the clothes, although they look like they will fit a left facing doll or a straight facing doll; it may not be so. I had to check each and every piece of clothing to make sure it would fit the dolls in the quilt. The outcome was that I had to eliminate several pieces of clothing from the gift and after I had cut them out so carefully etc. I also made a few extra dolls (I used a stiffer fusible, like what is used to make fabric bowls, I did stitch all around them and that seems to have worked fine), I think 3, and extra clothes and put them into a little pocketbook type thing so she could take it in the car with her and could take it on vacation, etc. Because of the size of the block you cut out to make the quilt it eliminated some of the neighboring dolls because they didn't have enough background fabric around them. So what I'm saying is that the amount of "doll" fabric called for in the magazine didn't give me enough leeway to pick and choose the dolls I wanted to use. If I had known that was going to be a problem I would have bought more "doll" fabric.
Despite these little set backs it was a delight to make and everyone who saw it loved it.
I hope this is helpful, have fun making it and playing with it with your daughter. If you have other questions I'll try to hlep.
peel