I never wash my fabric before cutting into it but I do starch it so I know beforehand if its going to bleed or not. Of course this happened before I started using starch and it was for my mother. I washed it, checked for bleeding and didn't see any so I thru it into the dryer. Then I found the red had bled onto the white. HORRID!!!!!! Someone here said go ahead and wash again with the color catcher and sure enough the red came out. So even through its been dried with heat sometimes you're lucky and it comes out using these color catchers.