Thank you for you input.
The washing machine does not have an agitator in the middle so there is no swishing back and forth of the quilt getting wrapped around it. It has a round disc which is flush with the bottom of the machine. This moves back and forth. The spinner is not what I call gentle so that is why I pulled it out, gently squeezed as much water as possible from it and then put it over the line and hosed it down. I know that there would have been excess weight with the water but I did not want the machine to crinkle it up in the spinner.
I am slowly working my way around it re-stitching the ends and this time I have left extra long tails, pulled them through to the back tied them off with a double knot then buried them back in the wadding, brought them up again to tie them off again twice.
Hopefully this will stop anything happening in the future.