I wash everything when it comes in the house and the fabric is put through with warm water, color catchers (and the catchers always come out some other colors than the white they went in with), and the fabric goes in the dryer at medium heat with the wonderful soft balls that keeps the fabric from getting to wrinkly and I take them out of the dryer after 15 minutes and then I smooth the fabric and hang it up till tomorrow to dry. I have found almost, every fabric shrinks and I want to start a quilt with the hope that it stays the size it came out of the dryer. I also do this for the backing (same as the top fabric) however, I put the batting in the dryer after spritzing the batting with water lightly and 6 wet wash clothes. I run 10 minutes, open and move everything around, 10 more minutes, same shake it all up, and then finally 10 more minutes. Then hang it over the clothes line or over the shower rod in the bathroom. I have had some wonderful colorful fabric that didn't run at all but have had some that ran very red or very black or very blue, or very green in the water in the washer. Hope this helps someone.