Pages

Friday, April 26, 2013

Novel stash busting tip: Just let the bugs eat it!



Seamsters, is your fabric and yarn getting you down? 

Are you sick and tired of those perky polka dot prints, wool doubleknits, hand-dyed merino hanks and sassy silk crepes hiding in the backs of your stash drawers, muttering and mocking you, whispering evilly "Why haven't you just sewn or knit me into something fantastically amazing and perfectly fitting already?" 

Are you worried that Me Made May '13 is going to be JUST TOO EASY?

What would you say if you knew there was a fast, efficient—and, best of all, 100% FREE—solution?

Try our new and improved.... 

Vicious Little Moth Larvae™!

They creep, they crawl, they chomp, they squiggle, they squirm! You'll have empty drawers in no time—your wools reduced to cheesecloth, your yarn reduced to bits, your handmades more ventilated than EVER before!

"But Mikhaela, how do I get some Vicious Little Moth Larvae™, you ask?" 

That's easy! Just take home a mysteriously holey thrift store cashmere sweater and assume that a gentle hand washing and a good darn will have it right as rain ... Let some woolen items fall to the ground in the deep dark recesses of your closet... ignore your stash for months ... and VOILA!

... er.

But seriously, folks. It's true. My husband and I have spent the past week battling the Moth Infestation of Doom, and I just cannot believe how far the little monsters have managed to spread. Our bedroom closet was the worst—all our suits and my wool skirts eaten, including my Sew Grateful Challenge Colorblock skirt.



But after we cleaned out the closet—washing, cleaning, throwing out or eco-friendly-dry-cleaning EVERYTHING that had survived... I began to inspect all the other drawers in the house. I'm still not done, as I'm going through them all very carefully, opening and shaking out each piece of fabric or item of clothing onto a sheet ...

I got all the way down to the bottom of my first fabric drawer and was loudly proclaiming in excitement to my husband "They didn't eat my fabric!!!!" ... when I unfolded a beautiful piece of cotton shirting and there they were, squirming away (though not eating—they don't eat cotton, they just live on it).

Yeah. So I've had to be incredibly ruthless. Handwashing doesn't kill the pests and I don't have the budget to eco-dryclean every piece of dry-clean-only fabric I had. ALL scraps are gone now—those leftover wool or silk fabric scraps that I'd been keeping for I don't know what—quilts? Stuffed animals?

And I've really made some hard decisions about my clothes as well. On the plus side, this leaves plenty of room for new me-mades. On the minus side, well... THEY ATE MY STUFF AND THEY ARE SO GROSS. (Though mysteriously, they were in my sock drawer but did not TOUCH any of my large collection of wool socks... phew! Probably because I am always opening that drawer and shuffling the socks around, the monsters hate light and disturbance.)

I still am not sure how the nasties got in, but I do suspect it was a beautiful thrifted wool sweater with a few little holes that I'd been meaning to darn... I put it in a hot dry dryer for 60 minutes the minute I got home (to kill potential bedbugs) but maybe that wasn't enough to knock out the moths. Or maybe it was a vintage handbag I bought on Etsy, or a piece of wool fabric from a bargain bin in a dusty old fabric store... Who knows!

Act now... GET YOURS TODAY!

P.S. Knitters, take heart. I'd always been in the habit of keeping all my wool yarn in plastic sweater bags for protection... and I didn't find a single little wool-chomper in those drawers. Too bad I hadn't treated my wool fabrics the same!


29 comments:

  1. So hilarious! But so sad. (but hilarious! [but sad!])

    ReplyDelete
  2. If there is only a small hole in something precious you could freeze it in a plastic bag for 2 weeks then darn it. I often have a fantasy of a separate freezer (large, of course) for woollen clothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was my original plan! But when I did a little research on entymology and museum preservation websites (I'll do a separate post explaining all I learned if I get a chance) they said that only really worked with deep chest freezers turned way down colder than is good for food... and in my little apartment, the only freezer I have is half-filled with my daughter's special food-allergy-free food.

      Delete
    2. You can also heat wool or fabric in the oven, that'll kill the moths and eggs. You can google for specifics, Extension offices have great info.

      The freezer trick also works if you freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw, freeze. Your freezer only needs to be 0F. But I don't have that much freezer space anyway.

      Delete
  3. LOL this made me laugh first thing in the morning. It sucks to hear about your stash but hey at least you can start over?! Thanks for bringing this moth issue to our attention, I never even thought about this before!

    ReplyDelete
  4. There is someone out there who shares your pain!

    http://dropstitchesnotbombs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/moth-erfucker.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh no! That is truly heartbreaking when it happens. I remember my horrible fight with moths-the cotton eating ones-that ate/nested in my entire stash of bookmaking fancy papers. All those gilt and imported papers all unusable with the nests adhering and the holes of the larvae eating their way out.
    But I'm sure you can bounce back! (especially with your good humor)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yikes, I'm so sorry! I'm stressed out by my stash, but not this much!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh no, those things are so hard to get rid of, I really sympathise. I have had carpet beetles in my flat (not seen any for a while but they're probably still lurking) and they had a good munch at my wool. I did freeze some stuff at home (using a freeze for 7 days/thaw/freeze again process) as apparently if you're not able to make it super super cold for a day or 2 you can go for longevity instead. Though in the end, I threw out most of the stuff anyway, just in case.
    If you do blog about what you did, expect it to become a really popular post. People searching for information about carpet beetles is my top search term and most popular post. Don't know why I bother with the sewing really!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good God -- bed bugs and now moths. What did New York City do to deserve these infestations?

    I say get the DDT and be done with it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if keeping one's fabric stash in Sterilite boxes might not prevent this -- or at least contain it. Actually, maybe we should all just LIVE in Sterilite containers...

      Delete
    2. Yes, I totally am now storing all my silk or wool fabrics in PEVA sweater bags or Sterilite-type containers, all shoes in the closet in separate plastic shoeboxes, etc. Ah well!

      Delete
  9. Re the source (and this will be my last comment, promise), they could have flown in through an open window (or a screen that didn't fit perfectly). I can't believe moth larvae could survive 60 minutes in a hot dryer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I heard that too. If a hot wash and hot dry kills them, why wouldn't just a plain hot dry? Could moths REALLY be hardier than bedbugs (which supposedly die from a hot dry alone)? I do know they're rampant in NYC... I can't use any pesticides because of all the asthmatics in our apartment, either.

      Delete
    2. Then again, they're BROOKLYN moths -- tough!

      Delete
  10. Noooooo, this makes me so sad for you!! I'm glad you have an excuse to bust out even more handmade, but not at the expense of the beautiful stuff you already have! Boo! You are making me reconsider EVERY SINGLE closet/drawer in my house and just stuffing everything inside my cedar-lined armoire. Wrinkles are better than moths, yes? :\

    ReplyDelete
  11. UGH! SO AWFUL! Although you made some hilarious blog post lemonade out of those lemons. I'd still take the fabric, though.

    My fingers are crossed that you've gotten rid of them!

    ReplyDelete
  12. OH DEAR GOD. This sounds horrible. Worse even than our legendary "Grain Moth Infestation of 2007," which (you can probably tell by the name) was absolutely harrowing and involved throwing away pretty much all of the foodstuffs in our house. Shudder. But closet moths? And all of your beautiful fabrics and wool clothing? NOOOOOOOOOOO. It's just not freaking fair.

    ReplyDelete
  13. nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! dont kow wha else to say :/
    ugh!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Ohhh my heart was breaking reading this...I can't even imagine! At least they spared your socks? I hope the rest of the de-infesting goes smoothly, and that the sewing to replace it all is a joy.

    I'm fighting the itch to go out and buy cedar blocks this instant...if moths ate my wool cape I would be so sad!

    ReplyDelete
  15. You know, I think I need to go through all my fabric. I should whittle down what I won't use anyways, and everything I'm keeping for whatever reason (that's not cotton!) should be stored in bags. I have so much yarn, too. Best to try to keep it safe!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! How awful! I'm so sorry!!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Arrrrrrgh evil moths! If only some one could invent a non-toxic way of just OBLITERATING ALL OF THEM! As you know, moths have made me very angry too by munching my handmade garments. Thanks so much, by the way, for stopping by my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Nasty turn of events for your stash. Regarding the socks, I know I've seen some yarns that are treated to repel the little b*st*rds, maybe the yarn you used was? Although as you say, they do like quiet and dark to do their dastardly deeds.

    I need to inspect my stash....and check the birdseed sitting in the garage - the source of our grain moth infestation a couple of years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  19. you might consider these - http://www.gardensalive.com/sure-catch-clothes-moth-trap/p/2838/

    I haven't used this, but have had success with other things I've ordered from them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I actually bought a few of those when I first started battling the infestation, they're non-toxic and while they can't defeat the moths on their own, they DO alert you to whether the adult moths are still active and fluttering round... I've got one in the closet and one in each other room and so far they are empty.

      Delete
  20. so sorry to hear this! :(( what a nightmare!

    Regarding the dry cleaning, in my experience a lot of 'dry clean only' clothes can still be washed in the machine. My grandma told me this and I wasn't sure, but I also don't have the budget to dry clean. I screwed up 1 scarf, and 1 top (sucks,but its better than spending $100s on dry cleaning), and one dress came out looking in bad shape, but light steaming brought it back to its glory :), the rest (fine silks, wools, polyesters) all survived machine washing! I do have a fancy Samsung ($500 range) washing machine that comes with options as handwash/air fluff etc. and I don't know if it would kill moths effectively, but I haven't seen one in over a year!

    ReplyDelete
  21. This is the saddest post. I'm so sorry your beloved stash was eaten up, but so relieved that your socks survived!

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to hear from you! But no ads please--I'll just have to delete them.