Unexpected Problems Using A Game-Changing Basting Technique

I always stall out at the same place with my quilts: basting the layers together so I can do the actual quilting (i.e., putting in the stitches that hold the layers together). In the past, I have used safety pins. It’s old-school basting and time-consuming. It requires crawling around on the floor for hours and about a million pins.

Many people have told me I should try basting sprays. They are basically glue in an aerosol can. However, more than one person has told me how the adhesive doesn’t really dry, can leave residue on nearby surfaces, and can gum up your sewing machine. My chronic health issues mean I am sensitive to exposure to chemicals and I’m guessing the stinky basting sprays are not a good thing for me to be around.

Imagine my excitement when I learned about glue basting using Elmer’s school glue from Stitch Obsessed’s video. Not only is the glue non-toxic and odor-free, but it washes out when you launder the finished quilt and it’s cheap. Between her how-to and her ten-questions-about-the-technique videos, Stitch Obsessed covered everything I needed to know about this game-changing technique.

Or so I thought.

For the record, I did do two test pieces. One was just scrap fabric that I sandwiched up to see how it would work. Right away, I learned something that still surprises me. Even though the glue is supposed to dry within 35 minutes, I had spots that took much longer to dry. This was especially weird to me because I live on the high plains in Colorado. It’s dry here. Crazy dry. As a result, I can usually count on things drying really fast. That the glue could take longer than advertised here was just weird.

My second test was actually a panel I’ve had in my stash for decades. Turning it into a small lap quilt gave me a chance to improve on my glue basting technique and carry a piece through the entire process to see how I liked using the glue.

To fix my drying problem, I took the time to draw a toothpick through any large drops of glue before smoothing the fabric onto the batting. This solved my blobs-that-didn’t-dry problem pretty well, so I added a toothpick to my basting tool kit. Machine quilting the glue-basted sandwich was a dream. Not only did the layers stay together without any trouble, but there weren’t any safety pins to remove as I quilted, one of the down sides to pin basting. When I washed the finished lap quilt, the glue came right out.

Confident I had things figured out, I bought a gallon of school glue (my little bottle was nearly empty) and ironed the maple leaf quilt. I set up in the dining room, planning to baste on the table as I had seen in the video.

The first half of the backing went okay. Not great — king-sized quilts are huge and you wind up wrestling with a whole lot of fabric and batting — but okay. I was thinking I was doing all right. Then I got into the second half of the quilt and the trouble began.

The first thing that happened was unglued pockets. Once two sides of a section are glued down, you can’t fold the fabric all the way back. I had to hold the fabric with one hand and sneak glue underneath. Then I folded back whatever I could to follow the method I had used before. (Note: Stitch Obsessed showed this in her video, I just missed it.)

The disaster became apparent when I got to the last section of the backing fabric. There was a gigantic fold in my batting. I couldn’t get it to lie flat. I played around, trying to smooth it out. I even toyed with peeling things apart, only the glue had dried enough (thank you, Colorado) that it would destroy the batting if I did.

After some deep breathing, I decided to move my project to the floor. Fortunately, we have a room downstairs that is empty right now, so I spread my backing and batting out there to look at my problem.

The fold in the batting was 7+ inches across at the quilt’s edge. My best guess is that while it was hanging off the table, the batting stretched out of shape. The basted batt was basically flat, so I don’t know what else could have caused that giant pucker. I did the only thing I could think of. I cut out the excess batting and got on with the gluing.

To avoid further problems, I kept the quilt spread out on the floor while basting the top down. I could glue the entire width of the quilt at once and avoid the pocket problem I’d had with the table while simultaneously supporting the entire batting to avoid any more stretching.

In the end, I am still a fan of glue basting, I just have to do it differently than I thought. I was hoping to get away from crawling around on the floor, but I can’t seem to make table tops and basting large quilts in sections work. It might be time for me to switch to quilt-as-you-go techniques, so I can baste smaller sections on the table and skip the whole wrestling-with-the-monster quilt phase of the process.

Have you every made an unpleasant discovery while trying a new technique?