I have never used these but like the way they look.. They look like they would fade..Do they?? and should they be washed first?

Most of them do not fade. I don't prewash batiks, but I do wash the finished quilt in Synthrapol so that any unset dye gets rinsed away rather than bleeding into other fabrics.

If you are unsure, you can pretest a small piece of each fabric. Drop it into clear water, or wet and place on white fabric to see if anything bleeds. You can prewash anything that is suspicious.

All of this applies to batiks the same way as other fabrics.

I have used batiks for some of my quilts and never had a problem with bleeding.

i use tons of batik fabrics.

the dyes can bleed with some batiks.

i wash all my batiks before i use them in a quilt. i prefer to wash batik fabrics by hand this way i can be sure that all the dye has been rinsed out of the fabric.

i have never had my batiks fabrics fade but that doesn't mean they won't or can't. i'm sure exposed to harsh sunlight for a length of time would allow them to fade.

I wash my batiks and have found that quite a bit of dye comes off them. I rinse until the water is clear (or nearly clear).

I wash them all and love using them in quilts.
K

They bleed a lot, but they never seem to fade. I wash and wash until the water runs perfectly clear.