Pray It Doesn’t Fray!

But if it does……  I found a solution!!  I am working with upholstery fabric and when I cut into the fabric I knew!!!!!  Terrible FABRIC FRAY!  Noooo, don’t do this to me now!  I am on a mission.  It wasn’t that big of a deal,  I would simply have to switch to pinking shears to cut it.  That would take care of it…or so I thought.  It continued fraying a lot even after switching to pinking shears!!  I talked to some lovely sewing gurus and they suggested a glue.  My brain started rolling and I got to thinking.  What about a spray glue!!!!!! I love my adhesives!!    So that’s what I did and even compared my favs for you!

First I took the upholstery fabric and sandwiched it between 2 large pieces of paper.  I took the top piece of paper and brought it down a little more than 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the fabric.  By doing this, my spray would only spray the edge and any change in fabric color would not go beyond the edge.  I had these 2 products on hand and knew one of them would probably work.  They both did… but VERY differently.

2 Products:

1. Quilt Basting Spray by Tailor. :  This worked great!  It wasn’t messy.  My hands weren’t a mess afterwards.  I could move the fabric around right after spraying because the drying time was quick.   It definitely controlled the fray.  I would say that it is a light glue.  Yes, it will still fray if I continue to rub the edge even after the application, however, it did what I needed it to do which was control the problem.  Also, it is an adhesive that comes out in a spray not a web.  For this application you do not want an adhesive that comes out in a webbing form.
2. 3M Super 77:  This worked too exceptionally well.  If you want that edge be rigid you would use this.  It is probably my favorite super strong spray adhesives of all time.  However, this was messier.  Your hands get super sticky and you definitely have to wait for it to dry to move the fabric.  The paper gets super sticky.  If you were to use this glue, it would never ever fray on you again.  This glue also comes out as a spray not a web!!  This brand does have a lower adhesive strength but I did not try any others since I was satisfied with my test.

I used the Quilt Basting Spray for the rest of the upholstery fabric.  It worked great and was exactly what I needed to control the fabric fray!!     There may be other products that are out there for this very problem but I didn’t need to research or go back out to look for them when what I had on hand worked for me.   I would not know if this would work on other softer and more fragile fabrics such as silks, linens, polyesters.  The only way to know would be to test them!