Dreaded Moths! 😱

I spotted 2 clothes moths while unpacking the fibre from yesterday’s workshop. Managed 6 years with no moths but I think the heat and open doors in the evenings has finally done it. Last thing I needed but glad I kept that little chest freezer in the shed! 🥶😭

Treatment

I’ve got to drop plans to get on with the next layer of my commission piece this week as I’ll mostly be batch freezing all my fibre and fumigating the studio.

First batch of wool bagged up ready for the freezer. Two visible clothes moths in the last few days means everything has to be frozen for 72hrs to a week at -18c while I fumigate all the containers and the studio.

In the meantime I have to pause on making anything in the studio until the fibre has been through the freezing process. The freezing will kill the moths at all stages of the lifecycle from eggs, larvae to moths. It is the only non-chemical way to achieve this.

However I will also be using the awful chemicals in the studio and containers before I put the fibre back in just to be extra sure there are none left alive.

Prevention

I also need to go back to being more disciplined about storing wool in separate sealed containers and possibly rethink my use of ikea trofast bins (open top). It is possible that there is only one small bag of fibre that has moths. As I was packing everything up for the workshop at the time I spotted them, it’s hard to say where they appeared from. However the only way to be sure is to treat it all.

I keep lavender bags in all the storage containers so will be freshening those up over this summer too.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m looking forward to cooler weather so I can seal up the studio again!