Laura2151

I want to organize my stash and I read somewhere that the Coroplast (plastic board) was acid free. If you go to the Coroplast website there is one type of Coroplast that is archival quality. The sign maker I talked to said he would never buy that type of material because it is not UV resistant. He suggested I try calling someone who does picture framing to find Coroplast-Archival which is what they call the chemically inert type of Coroplast on their own website.

Chemicals are very unpredictable. I recently opened one of those storage bags that I had used to put a comforter in. (This was a store bought comforter from about 3 years ago.) It was in a "Space Bag." One of those that you vacuum the air out to store it without taking so much room. The smell was unbearable.

I have also put a fat quarter bundle of Christmas fabrics into a gallon size Zip-loc bag, to transport it while looking for other fabrics. I set the project aside and didn't take the fabric out of the zip-loc bag. When I opened the bag about a year later, the chemical smell was awful. The chemicals were on the fabric, not the bag. Not letting that fabric breath was a mistake.

I try to protect my investment as much as possible. If most of us did the math, on what it would cost us to replace your stash, most of us would have a heart attack.

I protect my fabric from light too. I have a lot of scrapbooking in my past and I know how much damage time and light can do. I store my scrapbooks in white cotton pillow cases on the shelf. I always made sure my stuff was acid free and archival quality. It should have minimal fading, but I guess you never know whether each thing really is archival quality or not. They started to fade on the bookshelf so I researched and found the pillow case idea.

I have looked all over the web, and there are very few reliable/knowledgeable sources of information on how to store your fabric. Most of the information out there is from well-meaning, but uninformed bloggers. There isn't much information on safe fabric storage in published books either. Remember, "Just because it is in a book, that doesn't make it true." You really have to do your own research and check the credentials of your sources of information.

auntpiggylpn

Welcome to the board and Hello from Fort Wayne!!! When I put my fabric on boards, I bought sheets of foam core from the Dollar Tree. It is acid free and I cut my boards the size I needed. I got about 8 boards out of each sheet. I paid $1 per sheet but I noticed last weeks that the Dollar Tree had them for 2 for a $1.

EasyPeezy

I don't have room to store fabric on those boards. I just put them in totes
and my fat quarter bundles in pillowcases. It's nice to see fabric all lined
up on shelves but I can just imagine the damage it would get from light alone.

Tartan

You can buy comic book boards for storing your fabric on. They are made for archiving comic book collections so I would assume they are acid free.

BellaBoo

I purge my fabric every few years, getting rid of the oldest. I don't want to keep fabric for years unused.

ghostrider

Fabrics need air to breathe, that's why the stench when you opened up the space bag and the zip lock bag. All you really need is acid free, not archival. If you have doubts about an organic surface, get an acid testing pen. They're cheap, readily available, and easy to use. Mark the surface and read the color, a real no brainer.

Go with the easiest, cheapest, safest storage method that works efficiently for you and don't worry about it. Life's way to short to worry about this particular "what if". I guarantee you, whomever you give your finished quilts to isn't going to think about archival storage one little bit and you wouldn't want them to. You want them used, not archived, right?

mckwilter

I store my fabrics on boards I purchased from https://polarnotions.com/. They are a little pricey, but they are acid free and work great. My fabric looks like rows of bound books standing on the shelves.

dunster

I you investigate the comic boards, it turns out that most of them are acid free on one side only, and that protection wears off after a while. I just fold my fabric around a ruler and stand it up as if it were on a board. It does just fine.

Gramie bj

I do this too, then place in cabinets my DH made for me. They have doors with the top 1/2 being peg board
No sun light, good air flow, fabric easy to see and find, and more hanging storage too!

Gannyrosie

Since I"ve vowed not to have large stashes, I store my fabric in totes. I don't want to look studio, I just want to use them. If I ever see a point in time where fabric is fading then I think I need to stop buying and just start sewing. I know it's good to think about long term, but I am not a person who worries over these types of things. For a suggestion, maybe put on old sheet over all your folded fabrics to avoid light and dusk when you don't need to get to them. I see many sewing rooms with lots of open shelves packed with a beautiful display of fabric. I think it looks amazing, but if I had that much I would have to just cover those shelves with something when fabric is not in use.