Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't - however I have been advised not to "Wash" your quits, soak in the warm water for 30 minutes and use 1 capful of sweater soap - Zero, DO NOT ADJATATE. PUT ON SPIN and then lay flat to dry. The moving of the water, and pulling and pushing the quilt, will tear the batting apart - ask me how I know or better yet ask my youngest daughter....LOL!

In addition to bleeding, chemicals and shrinkage, think about where the fabric has been on its journey to your home. It may have sat in a factory or warehouse before being loaded on a cargo ship, sat in port for a few days before being loaded onto a truck. Then to a warehouse and finally shipped to a store. lots of opportunities for lots of little critters to contaminate it. Then to the store where customers (and sometimes their pets) can touch, sneeze and cough on it. Looks beautiful but I will wash mine just in case.

Always. In doing so, I seem to find at least one fabric that won’t stop bleeding. It gets donated for dog pillows because it will always ‘keep on giving” and I sure don’t want that. But I always want my fabric preshrunk so whomever gets a comfort quilt has something that is easy care. If they happen to wash it in hot water there won’t be a shrinkage problem.

I don't pre-wash... Also, for what it's worth, Consumer Reports has demonstrated that those color catchers don't actually help prevent your fabric from picking up stray dye. The catchers turn color, but the fabric that is in there with the piece that is bleeding doesn't pick up any less dye than it would otherwise. You can see a video about it here: https://www.consumerreports.org/vide...olor-catchers/