Basting with Elmer's Washable School Glue
 

I tried this method as I was looking for a more economical method of basting similar to using 505.
Elmer's Washable School by the gallon is $14.00 - cheap I should be able to do at least 18 quilts with a gallon of glue vs 505 in the red can $13.00 a can and I can get maybe 3 quilts per can.
Read on and see if this method is for you.
First, I put my Warm and Natural Batting in the dryer for a bit to try and soften the wrinkles. The I spread it out on my ping pong table (we never play ping pong on it, I use it only for quilting purposes)
Then I spread my backing on the top of the batting. I arranged it so that there was batting showing underneath all around the edges. I smoothed it all with my hands to ensure that there were no wrinkles in the batting.
Then I folded half of the backing towards the center of the quilt, (like folding a piece of paper in half on the long side of the paper.)
Now, holding the smaller bottle of glue over the batting at about 18 inches high I began to squeeze out the glue. With constant pressure I swirled the glue about 18 inches back and forth until I had about an 18 inch square swirl of glue. It dotted and did not lie in a straight line. I did this the entire length of the quilt.
Next, for the smoothing of the backing to the batting I started in the center of the the length of the backing and gentle lifted and pulled it towards me. I then smoothed it down with my hand. Then I did the same thing towards the left of me until I reached the end of the row and then I did the same thing on the right side. repeating the process for another 18 inch lengthwise row until that half of the backing was glued on.
I made sure there were no wrinkles and hand pressed the backing to the batting.
I repeated the same actions on the other side of the table with the glue onto the batting, then hand pressing it down. The I let it dry overnight. I positioned the quilt so that the center line was on the table's middle so that there was even pressure on the quilt as it dried.

I glued right up to the edge of the quilt! When I FMQ, I work the FMQing around the edge of the quilt and quilt into the middle of the quilt. The exact opposite of most folks. I read that if you quilt was securely basted it didn't matter where you started and ended :)
I repeated the glue swirling and hand pressing for the quilt top. There may be some ripples on the batting, but once the glue and hand pressing was completed the weight and pressure flattened them right out. I let it all dry overnight once again and FMQed the next day.
I took the quilt to the laundry mat and washed and dried it there, all the glue came out and it looks great.
If I use Elmer's I will have more money for fabric :)

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This is great. Thanks for the Tut. Where do you find the school glue by the gallon?

I went to your blog and saw your pictorial tutorial there... Nice job!!! http://californiaquilting.blogspot.com/

I bought it by the gallon at Amazon. We are not allowed to post about our blogs - so I hope we don't get removed!

You didn't post about your blog; I did!!!

Okay you are right lolrofl

Glad you had a good experience with it ... I didn't. I looked through the pic's on your blog and you had the same glue "gobs" that I did - about the same size. Well ... I finished quilting mine today and my machine did NOT like going through the glue gobs and each time I hit one my thread broke. I also noticed that it was gumming up my needle.

Back to hand basting for me :(

Wow, so sorry to hear that, I did spread the blobs out with my hands when I hand pressed the fabric to the batting but I did 4 big quilts with the same needle.