Finishing off cross stitch bunting

You can get an iron on backing fabric that will stop any further fraying Mattjo. Just cut it to size and iron it onto the reverse side of your cross stitch.

Google "Iron On/Fusible Interfacing Fabric" to be directed to that website beginning with A.

Thank you both for your comments. You are right that washing didn’t help but I was following the instructions. I’ve never heard of fraycheck - will look it up before I decide which way to go. I’m not too worried about the work involved, I just don’t want to ruin it!

I would have thought that AIDA fabric would fray with being washed.
Could you perhaps do as Ilovecheese suggested, or work a row of cross stitch around each flag, or would that be too much work?

I'm not sure how you are going to finish off the bunting. If you are not binding the edges then I think an overcast stitch would work. Or you could paint the raw edges with watered down pva glue or "fraycheck".