Do you wash your fabric before quilting?
 

I never have....but I am about to work with red and white fabrics for the first time.

I only wash the red's to check for bleeding. All the others, no. Always use a color-catcher though.

I do wash reds but that's about it.

When I bring the fabric in the house, it immediately goes in the washing machine in warm water and then into the dryer (10 minutes) and then hung up to dry. Most of the wrinkles hang out and if the fabric shrinks (and in this day and age, most of the time all the fabric shrinks in the washing) I will have all the fabric with no shrinkage when I start to sew. Reds and blues always leave red or blue water and sometimes the blacks and always use 5 or 6 color catchers in each washing load.

I don't prewash, but with red, or any other suspicious color...I cut a piece, like 1" X 1", put in a container of hot water and see if it bleeds..if it does, then I decide if I want to use or replace......so far so good .

what is a color catcher?

They look like fabric softener sheets. You buy them in the laundry section.

I always pre-wash lengths of fabric before using them. Someone on this board gave the tip to sew the two raw edges together with a zig-zag stitch to avoid twisting and ravelling in the washer and that works really well. If I have dark fabrics then I use a color catcher. I don't wash pre-cuts, so if I'm giving a quilt made with those I always give a color catcher with it.

I prewash everything including pre-cuts. I know that the quilting is supposed to stabilize everything, but I don't want any shrinkage or bleeding surprises.

But what if your fabric is precuts?