Using Elmers School Glue Instead of Pins
 

I work pt at a fabric store & a customer told me about using Elmers School Glue (has to be the school glue) instead of pinning. When she initially tried it (she was skeptical of this), she immediately liked this method better than pinning. She said it made it so easy to be perfectly accurate.

She bought a special tip that goes on the glue bottle to ensure a thin line. Runs the line of glue inside of the 1/4" seam allowance towards the raw edge of fabric, then goes over it with her iron to hold it. She said the school has cornstarch in it and it completely water soluble so if you want to remove the glue, just wet it a little bit. She said there is absolutely no shifting of fabric and her seams match perfectly.

Has/does anyone done this? I am going to try it out next time I am working on a quilt.

I would like to know what everybody has to say because that would be interesting.

Sounds interesting - but in my hands potentially messy! I am eager to see what others say.

I always use school glue now to hold binding for hand sewing and to hold pieces in place for applique. It works great and it does wash out.

Here are the links to Sharon Schambers (Master Quilter) how-to binding videos (there are 3 parts) using Elmer's glue.

While I'm sure she wasn't the first to use it, she did introduce many to the technique.
You can see how she uses/applies the glue.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PE0Yq9iGlc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3vHI7rgZpw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--xgi4nux8

Also, you can Google "piecelique" for info on how she incorporates the glue for piecing and applique.
And the "mess" is really minimal, especially with the tips - which can be found at Michaels or from Nancy's Notions.

I didn't have the tip for my first few glue bindings and it still worked applying the glue straight from the Elmer's container.

I then used the Roxanne glue bottle (comes with a great tip) and just refilled it with the Elmer's glue.

That is, until the bottle and my iron came in contact.
Now THAT was a mess!!

I use the glue stick for bindings all the time, but haven't tried it for anything else yet. Using a glue stick, it will take me about 15 minutes to glue down the binding, but I can go directly to the sewing machine and stitch it down in a snap! No stopping to pull pins. It does wash out great, even when I get a bit messy and get the glue where I don't want it. I haven't pinned a binding since using glue sticks!

I use a glue stick for foundation piecing and I love it. I have also used the glue with the tip for applique and it is really easy to use. My only problem was keeping the tip cleaned out.

I have used it, but not on my seams. BUT I did a test and used lots of glue on fabric and it washed out completly

Every since I watched the Sham Shamber video, I use it all the time. It makes everything sew much easier. Right now I only use it for my bindings, but I can see that there could be many uses for it. It washes out completely and no one ever knows you glued anything if you don't tell them.

So which works better, the liquid glue or the glue stick?