Oh Elmer,Elmer....sigh

With my husband off sailing for a week, I've been all on my lonesome......and LOVING IT!!! So what have I been up to?? Good question....how's that for being evasive?? Well, you know the usual...keeping strange hours, reading novels, navel gazing....and quilting, of course. 

And, I have a new man in my life, well sort of.....

Elmer, Elmer Elmer......you must be ancient and yet I adore you, for inventing the best glue ever. I wonder when that was exactly, I can never remember there NOT being any Elmer's white glue. I so underestimated your value and took you so for granted....well, that's about to change.
 

It's not that I hadn't heard of quilters using Elmer's Washable School Glue for gluing down bindings and such....I'm ashamed to say, I dismissed the idea out of hand. Sorry Elmer.....I WAS SO WRONG!! (Trust me those words do not come out of my mouth all that often, just ask my husband.)

 

Any of you that pop in now and again, know that I use the Quilt As You Go methods on a regular basis. Joining the long rows or columns of blocks can be a little really painful. I mean that literally, as there are several pins involved, which have a way of poking you, as you wedge the whole thing under the machine. Suddenly a light went on....if you can allegedly (at that point I had never tried it) glue down binding, why not the joining strips??

  

Joining QAYG columns with wide strips...check out the tutorial here.

I was a little nervous as put a line of glue in the seam allowance, since I didn't have the fine tip for the glue bottle that some tutorials mention....I will have to get me one of those.

 

But it went on without a hitch!!

Heat set with a dry iron. 

Would you look at that beautifully flat, glued down edge!! 

Here's a close up!! 

 

There is a tremendous advantage to not having to contend with pins as you sew down these edges. You just have so much more control.

 

Also...and this is huge, you no longer have pins poking you and catching on your clothing as you sew down these long edges....if you've never done QAYG, you will just have trust me on this.

I got so carried away, I finished Autumn's quilt (Pattern: Think Big by Jacquie Gering).

 

I even used glue on the bindings....I'll leave that for another post.

I love how this quilt turned out.

 

 

Here's a shot of the back.

So thanks, Elmer....you've made my quilting life a little easier and a little lot more pain free!!