well i have one made with half cotton squares and half corduroy. Never encountered a problem with lint but i do have a top loader washer. Perhaps that is what helps.....

The manual of my washer makes no reference to a filter. It would make sense to have one easy to take out.

sometimes sense isn't in manufactures vocabulary. sad but true.

Could you stick the quilt in the dryer first, to shake off and collect loose threads in that filter? Then wash it?

I do what peckish suggested….throw in the dryer for 20 minutes or so. I’ve also wet in my laundry room sink, getting most of the water out, drying and then doing the washing machine.

I've never heard of or cleaned a washing machine filter in my life. I also never heard of color catchers going anywhere. When I use them they are in the basket when I take the quilt out and I throw them away.

Good point QuiltWoman. I also have a top loader and don't have a problem.

Our first front loader was a Whirlpool. While it was still under warranty, we had to have it serviced. They found a pencil in the filter - which was not accessible without taking the machine apart. How it got from the drum, through the discharge and into the filter is beyond me, but it somehow did. Never had another problem. That washer was almost 20 years old when we gave it away as we were remodeling.

The new front loader, an LG, does have an accessible filter. Five years in, the pump quit - mid cycle, of course. So I had to drain it through the little trap door that the filter is also located in. As long as it was open, I of course cleaned it out. Very little was in it.

Personally, if I were making a rag quilt, the only way I'd wash it for the first few cycles would be at a laundromat.

I take mine outside and shake shake shake
that helps a lot. I also shake it after washing and also empty lint screen in dryer at least once while drying.

we bought a new wash/dryer set up and it had the accessible area in the front. I dont think he called it a lint trap? But alas, the dryer vented wrong and had to be returned for a different set and to access the “trap” in that one the front panel has to be removed.