Try making a 12" quilt sandwich from your ugliest piece of fabric. Visually divide that 12" square into four quarters and apply the glue in various ways mentioned here. Let the glue dry or iron over it with a warm iron. Quilt on it, then, throw it in the washer and dryer and see what you think.

Once you see without danger to a quilt that you have spent hours piecing, I believe you will be hooked.

Tartan, so glad you pushed on and found out how wonderful glue basting is.

The Glue bottle you show in the picture does not say Washable. I wonder if this is why you are having a problem.

Thank You Tartan, I've use Elmer's school glue and love it. Also with all the back to school sales I to stocked up on my glue sticks and bottles. I never thought about a roller and tray before. This sounds great. I just picked up the backing for a new 3 panel design wall (I up-cycle a lot of stuff and I was given the panels and told I could have more any time, the panels are light weight and they come with great hanging holes in the top of each panel), I will be able to fold and put up and take down as I want without having to get help (right now I have plans for this to hang in my sewing area in the corner with two panels next to each other and the third panel on the other side of the corner - I'm making one panel with chalk board fabric on the back side, so I can have my client due dates listed along with shopping list for items needed to finish my client items as well as my own). This will also make full time RV'ing with my design wall easy. But I was having trouble with how I was going to get all of my batting glued down (so your roll idea came along at the right time). Thanks again

I picked up 3 large Elmer's glue sticks at Walmart during their before school sales but was not careful enough. Realized later that the glue is purple. I know it dries clear but was wondering about the effects of the colored glue on fabric. Has anyone used the purple glue sticks?

Thank you for this idea to use for applique (on my bucket list to do an applique project).

The washable glue can be thinned with water and applied with a soft paintbrush. I used it for the seamlines on the pieced back of a quilt. Worked fine. I kept it barely moist so it would not bleed through to the front side.

Tartan,your idea is genius! Thanks for sharing. I don't use glue to baste, but this might be worth a go!

Purple glue sticks fade to clear..at least the ones used when I was teaching. So there shouldn't be a problem.

I use the 505 or another spray glue from Joann's for all my quilts. I may try the Elmer's on a small one in the future. I will also look in Walmart for the glue mentioned by ThreadHead! No more all over pin basting for me!

Glue basting is the only thing I use. I don't spread it over the whole surface. I just squizzle a thin stream in a zig zag motion on the quilt bat and then lay the backing over it and smooth it down. Let it dry and then flip it over and do the same for the front. Never had any problems.
You don't need to think of glue basting as an alternative to spray but rather it is an alternative to pin basting or thread basting. You don't pin or sew everywhere and it works so you don't need to glue everywhere.