I'll be making a quilt for my niece and her husband, and it will have a very dark brown fabric in it. I prewash, and when I prewashed this fabric, I used synthrapol (sp?). I then ran it through another wash with a color catcher, which came out very dark brown. I did that about five more times with the color catcher before it quit releasing dye. If I hadn't, I'm afraid my niece would have ended up with a quilt with brown dye in a lot of spots where it shouldn't be after the first time she washed it.
So here's my question. If you don't prewash, what do you do to prevent bleeding after the quilt is finished? If I were going to keep the quilt, I wouldn't worry about it too much, but if I'm going to give it away, I'd hate the thought that the recipient might wash it and end up with a bleeding mess. I usually provide instructions to wash the quilt in cold water and then tumble dry, just in case there's still some excess dye, but with some fabrics, it doesn't seem to matter if the water is hot or cold - they're still gonna' bleed! I'm just curious to know how you deal with it.
Thanks!