I haven't used Elmer's glue for basting, but for those who wish it would dry faster -- have you tried ironing it? I think if you are not using big blobs of lines of it that ironing would make it dry much faster. I use tiny bits of Elmer's glue on my bindings and always iron immediately to get it to stick. I think my only concern with ironing Elmer's for basting would be that I would want to make sure that the glue is spread out thinly, not in thick globs or lines. Of course, ironing would only work for primarily cotton battings (80/20 should be okay); polyester battings could melt under the heat of an iron.