October 2014 Demo Days - Glue Basting

October 2014 SAMQG meeting was "Demo Days" in a round robin style where there were 4 stations set up and 4 guild members each demo'd a technique or style or method used in their quilt-making.

Glue Basting for everyone!  Thanks so much to Christine, who showed us how to glue baste our seams for more speed and accuracy.

This is the super-expensive, hard-to-find, elusive, magical quilting tool needed for the Glue Basting technique. (*sarcasm implied*)  Glue.  White Elmer's School Glue.

Christine does recommend using a fine-tip from Sharon Schamber's shop online.

Let me appolgize in advance for not having the best pictures from this Demo station.  She really did a great job and I didn't document it as well.  SORRY!!

Ok, so in this picture (or more accurately NOT in this picture)  Christine had added a small bead of glue within the seam allowance of one square.

Once the glue is applied, you add the second piece of fabric, right sides together, just as if you were getting ready to add in pins.  Instead of pins, however, you line up your edges and hit that glue with a hot iron.  

The glue becomes every-so-slightly stiff and your two squares are joined.  (She's holding the joined pair up, right outside the camera's frame in the photo above.  Dangit.)

Because fabric can shift a tiny bit when pinned, glue keeps the pieces ridiculously accurate.  This is a perfect no-shift option to exact intersections on your quilting designs.

Christine recommends cutting one day, pressing the whole pile of squares another day and then stitching the third.  Or at least, doing these steps in 3 different processes.  She also shared this awesome tip:

Use the WHITE glue, not the gel glue.  The gel doesn't set at strong.  With the Glue Basting method, you can actually glue and entire row of blocks at a single time, without having to get up and down to go to the sewing machine.  Just park that ironing board right by the design wall.

Turns out, you can also glue baste those English Paper Pieced hexagons, too!  

(!!! Get right outta town !!!)

Use a glue stick and remember the elementary school adage "A Dot is A Lot" when adding glue to the back of your prepared pieces. 

 Once all the glue is applied and the fabrics are folded over, simply whip stitch your project together and remove the paper.