My experience with washing layer cakes and jelly rolls is that the fabric shrinks unevenly -- a lot one way and very little the other. The two times I washed jelly rolls (both with pinked edges), I was still able to use them as 2.5" strips, although they were slightly narrower than the stash strips I used along with them. I washed and rinsed them by hand, spun in nylon mesh garment bags and hung to dry.