I always wash a quilt before giving it as a gift. I use a color catcher because I want to be sure about colorfastness. Most of the time I feel like I know more about that than a recipient who might know little about fabric. Second, any quilt gets lots of glue, starch, etc. and I want that to be gone. Also, if you give a quilt, particularly a baby quilt, the mom will know it is washable and she can use it all she wants. Recently I gave a quilt to a new mom and the baby promptly spit up on it. The mom apologized and I simply told her that babies do that all the time and just throw it in the washer and dryer. She was relieved that the gift had not been ruined. It now goes through the wash at least weekly. I love to see my quilts used all of the time. I sometimes cut the label off of the wrapper for the batting and include it in the gift package.