I have no clue, except what dunster mentioned--that the giver never finds out from the recipient that colors ran when they washed a gift quilt.

I once asked a LQS owner how she always sewed the store samples and even her personal quilts without ever washing first but never had a problem. I would be scared silly to make a whole quilt . She said she doesn't have time to wash and iron fabric for the store samples (I understand that but still cringe), and if she were to wash them she'd used color catchers. But once a color like red bleeds onto white , color catchers aren't gonna catch the excess. I just scratch my head at the phrase 'I've never had a problem." I wonder if the person has used any color darker than beige. ?

No clue. I've had all those problems plus some you didn't mention. :D

I don't know either, but I'm right there with you!! I always wash, and I have had lots of bleeders, and shrinkers too. I discovered a flaw in my current project while quilting it, but decided to leave it. it's small, and I figure that if it took me this long to see it, others might not see it!!

My LQS owner told me you don't have to wash quality quilting fabric but I wash it anyway. I don't seem to see much bleeding these days with those good fabrics. But, I do see a slug now and then or a snag in the weaving process. I, too, would be pretty upset if I paid full price for a piece of fabric and it was sun faded. That would go back in a second.

. I always wash my finished quilts and put them in the dryer because that’s what I want the recipients to be able to do. Plus they always look different after that process and I don’t want them to think they did something wrong. I am not a prewasher but have been known to snip off a piece of a suspected bleeder to test it.

Luckily, I have never had fabric bleed. I usually make queen size quilts, and I buy my fabric at LQS and wash with 3 color catchers to make sure all is okay before I gift them. Just this past week, I was making metallic/neutral placemats and pre-washed my fabric (which I never do but did not want any lumps or shrinkage in my placemats) and had one piece lose its metallic, which made it useless after that. It was the Moda grunge that has the metallic stars on them. I called LQS, and they are going to tell their customers and issue a refund to me.

With using color catchers, It seems many fabrics will release excess dye. What is interesting to me is that not all fabric will absorb excess die.

I had one quilt with a navy print that bled, and I washed it several times. And it bled again when washed after quilting. The other colors were pink/red with white prints. Some of them turned a bit blue, and many of them stayed bright. And yes, I used color catchers. My son took the quilt, he liked that the pinks were toned to blue.


But that was only the second of about 100 quilts that I had problems with - so only two fabrics that caused problems in completed quilts.

Guess I've been buying "inferior" fabric lines - Michael Miller, Kaufmann, Hoffman, Benartex, Jinny Beyer (but I think she has gone with different manufacturers over the years) - etc.
A few other lines that I have forgotten.

That’s a splendid idea...I think I’ll start doing the same thing.

as a non-quilter, if I got a quilt with a box of color catchers I'd probably put it in the closet rather than use it, get it soiled, and have to wash it.