Pins and long term fabric storage- Question
 

Hi Ladies and gents. We've recently moved house and I'm putting together my sewing room. I have a nice bookcase with glass doors (I'm getting the UV window film for those!) that I'm using to store my fabric. I started rolling my fabric onto those comic book boards and absolutely love how it looks, like my own little quilt store in my sewing room. I do have a question though. I started pinning the fabric to the board, so it wouldn't unravel, and then I got paranoia thinking the pins would rust and ruin every piece of fabric I have, so I took them out. I live in the Houston area, so we do get some nice humidity here. I've checked other threads that were a bit conflicting. Use stainless steel, but not all stainless steel, or brass, but I haven't seen a brass straight pin, or even using enamelled pins (like the ones they use for displaying insects.) Any suggestions fellow quilters?

I would avoid pins, actually any fastener might leave a mark that might be hard to iron out. Unless you are constantly taking fabric on and off the shelves, you shouldn't need one. After your shelves are organized, I would get 2 pieces of stiff plastic a bit taller & wider than your fabric. When you need to 'reshelve' a piece, put the 2 piece of plastic in the desired location, slide the fabric between, then remove the plastic pieces. Actually, putting a piece of plastic on either side of a bolt you want to remove will let you get it out without disturbing its neighbors & unraveling them.

Living in Georgia with high humidity I pin mine to the comic boards also store in closet and bookcase with glass doors. The pins have been in for about three years and I haven't had one rust yet. I use the long, yellow head pins.

I started out securing my fabric with large rubber coated paper clips to keep it secured around the boards. I bought them at The Dollar Tree and they come in packages of 80. However, I have found that the fabric stays put without them when aligned on my shelves. I used to work at Hancock Fabrics and when we put the bolts on the shelves we just folded the end under a couple of inches and it stayed put due to the bolts on either side. All of the Hobby Lobby stores I have been in use a small silver straight pin. I think that just opens the door for the customers and the workers to get stabbed with pin. Our Joann's does some kind of elaborate fold thing and then they stuff the end in between the layers of the bolt at the top. It wrinkles the fabric something fierce and it can actually stretch the corner of the fabric at the cut end.

Not all stainless steel is the same. There are so many different types of stainless, very high quality stainless has a high nickel content.... and you will know it because it will not stick to a magnet. That is why almost all pins that say stainless on the package are not high quality stainless and will rust under the right conditions.
I purchased some plastic coated paper clips to use. I also... if I have to .....pin fabrics at the selvage if they are going to be stash fabric. I have also used fabric trimmings to tie around a roll or board of fabric. I did try rubber bands at one point but over a long period of time they did leave a slight stain.

A LQS I went to on my last vacation used these fabric-coated rubber bands on their bolts - sort of like what hair ties are made of. Looked like something they'd made themselves, just lengths of this stuff they'd tied together on one side to make it a band. Seems like those would hold up well.

I use the LARGE paper clips that someone mentioned. These seem to be working well. Good luck. BrendaK

I guess I wouldn't leave pins in fabric. When I did cross-stitch I often left needles along the edges of the unfinished projects (UFO's there too!) and years later there was usually rust around the needles.

Ditto. I live down by the gulf and have no rust spots. I check the pins to make sure there is no rust on them in the first place.