I have made about 40 rag quilts. Most are made with 3 layers of flannel or two layers of cotton and flannel as the middle layer. I think your design would work even better than the traditional X. I have done several quilts using my embroidery machine to stitch designs through all three layers. If the design was small I would also straight stitch in the corners of the square. I've also used decorative stitches, monograms, lettering, and different patterns to quilt the squares. I think you could do any design you wanted. In my opinion the X is the minimum amount of stitching needed but more is better. And I would definitely recommend some type of stitching on the borders.
Last edited by janjanq; 08-20-2018 at 05:44 AM.