This week for Nifty Notions #4 I'll be reviewing Aleene's Ok To Wash - It glue. I purchased
Aleene's glue on Amazon. By clicking the link I receive nothing. I'm in no affiliated with Amazon or Aleene's. To be honest you can find it cheaper with a simple Google search.
This will be an honest review of good, bad or indifferent. While I love that you trust and value my opinion I encourage each you to seek out more opinions and reviews on any products in the Nifty Notions reviews.
In this review the Aleene's glue will be used as a fray stop and a applique basting glue. Normally I use two different glues when making turned edge applique. Since I do both hand and machine applique I'll be testing it in both situations.
The first thing I need to do is make a tiny hole in the nozzle. It was really easy to poke a hole in the top of the tip using a pin. Thank goodness! I don't have any fine tip nozzles to fit this bottle. Cutting it with scissors would have allowed to much glue to flow.
It doesn't take much glue for this project. Well I should say that with the other glues I have used a small amount is sufficient. So I'm assuming this glue will be the same. In the picture is an example of the amount of glue needed.
One little drop on each inner point, then I rubbed it in with my finger tip. This should stop the inner points from fraying.
Next I added a few more tiny spots of fabric in the seam allowance of the applique.
This is where things might get a little scary. The bottle says it's a permanent fabric adhesive for ribbons, trims and applique. The instructions say to add the glue, let stand for about 3 minutes then press together. Let air dry for 24 hours. Wait 7 -10 days before washing. Well my goodness who has time for all that nonsense? I've made a few changes to instructions to help speed up the dry time.
With the glue still wet and my iron set to wool I pressed the applique into place.
I continued adding the rest of the applique in the same manner. So far so good! The applique is sticking to the background fabric. Now let's get this cutie machine stitched into place.
Everything went well. No issues at all. The fabric doesn't seem stiff. There's no signs of glue stains on the front of the applique. Since the glue is dry I'm going to assume it will be safe to wash. Just to be a little on the safe side I'll give it 24 hours of air drying.
The next day I threw it in the wash with my husbands work cloths laundry. His work cloths are washed in Era, which I find to be a very harsh detergent. If the glue can hold up to Era it can make through just about anything. I'll throw in some color catchers because of the red and black fabrics.
The block and the color catcher both look pretty good right out of the washer. So in the dryer for 15 minutes.
After removing it from the dryer it was pressed using the cotton setting. All seems well. No fraying or stains. It doesn't feel stiff. I gave the inner points a vigorous rub with thumb and finger nail. Trying my best to make them fray. They held up well with no fraying!
I made another small flower shape and added the glue in the same manner. Then I hand stitched down. The test here was to see if stitching through the glue was difficult. With no thimble it was a breeze to stitch into place. I'm impressed!
REVIEW RESULTS
1.Cost
At about $5 a bottle I think this is a bargain. The total cost of the 2 glues this will replace is $16.
2. Ease of use
Yes it was easy to use. I thought it might be hard to make a tiny hole in the top of the nozzle but the pin slid through pretty easy. Cutting off the tip would have allowed too much glue onto my project. Not needing to buy a fine tip nozzle makes me happy. Also the glue DID NOT make the fabric hard to hand sew. I could barely tell it was there.
3. Efficiency
While it's not going to reduce the time spent on applique by much. I'm going to say YES it will cut a little time off the process since I won't be needing two bottles of glue.
Would I buy it again, you betcha!
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