My quilting is all edge to edge. I hide the quilting threads by machine binding over them while attaching the binding. The binding also stitches over the quilting near to the end of a row of quilting, so I think that makes them secure enough.
One thing that I learned the hard way - if you have lots of small patches, you also have lots of seams that end at the edge of the pieced quilt. Before sandwiching and quilting, stitch 1/8th" to 1/4 " around all the edges of the quilt top. That keeps seams from unraveling at the edges as you quilt.