About washing batiks. I would like to say this - ahemmmm - for some unknown reason, batiks seem to have TONS of excess dye still left in them! They will bleed out like no tomorrow. I ALWAYS wash batiks. The only time I was surprised about the lack of excess dye was with some of the Connecting Threads batiks, but others - ooooh my, did they bleed!
This said, I usually wash all my small pieces of fabric - 1/4 yard or less, by hand. I fill a dishpan (or other large container) with the hottest water I can stand and a bit of Ivory Liquid dish soap - 'cause it's on the kitchen sink where I'm working! Place the fabrics - like colors in at the same time, such as lighter ones, first. I swish them around and get them wet. Let sit for a few minutes and swish again. If you see dye beginning to color the water, keep swishing and agitating them. When you think you've released the dye, remove one piece at a time and rinse, rinse, rinse until the water runs clear. When you've finished that batch, add another group and repeat.
I lay them all out on a large towel and roll up to squeeze the wet out. Then I iron them dry. I developed this method of deaaling with washing small fabrics when I was doing a BOM from the LQS. It was all batiks & we were given strips - 2 1/2" wide - so I did it this way.