mothproofing

My name is Lanicraft and I have a moth problem.

The house has a moth problem. I think they were in the carpet when we moved in and we have never gotten rid of them. Sometimes they are invisible, except for the holes in our clothes, and sometimes they are flying all over, or crawling on our sweaters, or otherwise grossing us out. (finding a moth larva on a sweater you ARE CURRENTLY WEARING will give you the creepy crawlies for a long time.) They are only supposed to like wool, but I have found holes in cotton clothing and acrylic yarn. My moths aren't picky - they eat anything. Ugh.

Unfortunately, T-man and I are not disciplined enough to vacuum daily, under all the furniture, dry clean all our sweaters (or bake them in the oven), and don't have enough room to freeze/thaw them to stop the moth life cycle. I don't think that we will ever be totally rid of them, but we do try to discourage them with cedar and lavender (and we do vacuum! just not daily).

In an attempt to protect my recent stash additions, I decided to pack up the yarn with some moth deterrents. Step one: zip top bags and cheap soap.


Step two: make sachets with soap and lavender.


Old tights or pantyhose come in handy for this project.


Step three: pack yarn in bags with sachets.


I didn't have enough old pantyhose to make sachets for my entire stash, so I tucked the extra bars of soap in the other bags of yarn.

For the record, the soap and lavender (and cedar) will not kill or get rid of moths, but the scent deters them from laying eggs and feeding their family with your woolen items. When the weather gets warm enough, I'm going to pack all my sweaters into black garbage bags and let them cook in the sun for a while. That should actually kill the eggs and larva.

Thanks to the Ravelry forums for all the tips.