See? See! My paranoia is completely founded, and once again, has saved the day.
I’m totally religious/paranoid (as a lapsed Catholic, that’s kind of interchangeable for me) about sealing up and isolating any new fiber I take in, and I’m especially suspicious of unprocessed fiber. A couple months ago, I got some raw alpaca and sealed it up in one of those giant ziplock bags and set it aside from my other stuff.
Today I decide to wash some up for alpaca batts, and lo and behold, what do I see but moths! Luckily, there were no holes in the bag–I pressed on it and the seal held tight–so I’m confident it was contained. I chucked the bag out (and I will be asking for a refund) and monkey-picked all my other fiber, which is also all sealed up, and everything’s fine, thank god.
But paranoia has long been my ally, so to be absolutely safe, I’m sealing up the room with space heaters and going all Bikram its ass. All stages of moth (eggs, larvae, pupae, moth) are toast in four hours at 104 degrees, so I’m heating the room to 106 or so for a good 24 hours. Shazaam, assholes!
(If it were late July and I closed the windows, I could probably rack up 106 without a heater–it’s a very sunny room. That, and the cold winters, are probably a big reason behind my luck avoiding moths thus far.)
I’m also instituting a UK-style quarantine plan on each and every bit if fiber that comes in from now on–even the uber-processed commercial stuff. My Yarn School gear is on its way, so it will be the first batch subjected to my new arctic quarantine. I’m bringing over the chest freezer from Eskridge and everything new will get a couple days at room temperature, followed by a shocking week of unmolested deep freeze action before it gets to join the other fiber. 72 hours at zero is lethal, so a week at 5 – 10 below seems like a pleasing degree of overkill. Not that it matters this time of year, but in the winter, the pre-freezing warm stint is critical–it’s the sudden, shocking freeze that’s killing, which is why moths is a naturally cold habitat can adjust and overwinter–and also why a regular household fridge/freezer isn’t always cold enough to kill.
So I won’t be making any batts today, but I will be wiping away all of my doubts and fears, which is an even happier pursuit.
And maybe I’ll even practice a little yoga in there, as long as it’s all hot.
I’m kind of tempted to drag all my yarn into the hot room, too, and let it stew as well, but my yarn is in my bedroom, and pretty constantly monitored, so I wouldn’t really classify it as at-risk. Hm. But that would give me a good excuse to catalog my stash for ravelry and reorganize everything….