The Irish Chain saga

I titled this 'saga' but it's not a sad saga.  This was fun starting while visiting my daughter in Oregon, T.  I had an idea of colors, but with her help and a trip to JoAnn Fabrics we came up with these:

Basic triple chain block - 38 done!

New DIL3, S, said she would like neutrals, but T said green is the new neutral!  (It doesn't hurt that that's her favorite color).  But I think the colors work well together and we forged ahead and made all the triple chain blocks together, all 38 of them!

 Then I came back to Arizona, picking up Mom on the way home.  Mom and I worked on cutting and getting ready to sew the alternate blocks.  We had a nice time chatting and I cut - then I realized I had cut the base color too narrow!  
When we originally bought the beige - a very nice linen looking fabric - I bought 2 yards.  When we left T's in Oregon I started thinking I would need more so in Santa Clarita, CA with DIL2, Tf, I went to JoAnn Fabrics there.  Lo and Behold we found the exact fabric!  I bought another yard, so thought I was good till Mom and I chatted my way into a wrong cut.  I know, I know, "measure twice, cut once".  Any way - when we took Mom home to So. CA, a 5 hour drive, we stopped in Hemet at a JoAnn's but after much searching I couldn't find the exact fabric.

Now, back in Arizona, I decided to drive the hour or so to JoAnn's in Bullhead and my girlfriend found the right stuff nearly as soon as we started looking!  Yay!  So I could continue on.

 Now it's all laid out with 3 seams to go!  Son, C & DIL3, S arrive tomorrow from their home in Ecuador so I'm hoping to have this all together as a taste of what's to come.  

So now I have a question for you.  I usually buy my fabrics for quilts in a quilt shop.  This time we did what was easy and didn't search for one in Oregon, but went right to JoAnn's.  I found that a couple of the fabrics frayed.  One is actually fraying A LOT!  Do you find that?  Also, this was the first time I didn't prewash - we wanted to get right to the stripping and sewing since T had that day off work.  Do you think had I pre washed the fraying would've been less?  Just wondering.  Let me know what you think in the comments.  
Hopefully there will soon be a totally completed quilt to photo shoot for the next blog.