Calling all Pre-Shrinkers!!

I started cutting the fabric for the twins' quilts yesterday (finally!), and discovered that the selvedges had shrunk *substantially* more than the main body of the fabric. It skewed the weave for about an inch out as well!

How do you handle this? Wash it, cut of the selvedges, block the darned thing, and THEN cut? As if washing and ironing it first isn't a big enough pain all on it's own! So far, I have just cut from the undistorted part first, then resquared the remainder and cut a smaller piece from that. NOT very efficient with my use of fabric, but all I can remotely consider having patience for!

That said, I know that I am a)PMSing (I hope!), b)in a bunch of pain from my fibromyalgia gearing up due to both 'a', the thunderstorms we've been having, and my screwed up meds schedule lately, and c) frustrated about all of the above. Thank heavens for Spike TV. Without my DS9 and TNG Star Trek five hour fix, I think my husband would come home to me once, and never again!