Moth 911.

I do still knit and even at much greater frequency than I anticipated after Amelia was born. She's a great nurser and doesn't mind the slight jostling of my hands and arms while I go 'round and 'round on my circulars finishing up her stripey pants. I have one round left and then an I-cord and they're done. This has made me think about all of the other wonderful things that I want to knit (both for Amelia and others on my perpetual "to knit for" lists) or finish knitting. Have you ever had one of those BOOM! I'VE GOT IT! moments when you finally link up a yarn that's been in your stash forever with a project for which you just HAVE to wind the yarn right away and get started on it, even though you already have ten projects languishing on the needles? (Of course you have, my knitting readers anyway...)

It hit me today that Amelia MUST have another pair of stripey pants in the smaller 3-6 month size and VOILA! the perfect yarn from my stash appeared in my mind's eye. It was a gift from Heide during the Harry Potter Swap last summer in the coolest shades of minty green and lavender. They'll be self-striping stripey pants...perfect!

Until I went to my stash and pulled out the yarn. And remembered that I did almost swallow a moth in my kitchen the other night just from walking through it while yawning (what? yawning with an infant around?). And I did see a moth in my hall closet, suspiciously close to my half-a-sheep's-worth of roving. And I did see a moth fly in or out or around this stash box a few weeks ago, but decided to leave my head comfortably buried in the sand because I just couldn't stomach dealing with moths eating my yarn.

I can't avoid this though:
o...h......m...y......g...o...d

Do you see all of those little yarn ends hanging out there, clipped perfectly by a moth's mouth for no apparent reason other than to make me go totally crazy and want to exterminate my entire house? That's only on one side...there are more ends flying out there on the other side.

Okay, I told myself, let's remain calm here. In the words of The Great Harlot herself, I thought, let's ask the blog. The blog will know what to do.

So blog? What do I do?

1. What do I do about preventing this from happening again and (hopefully?) ridding myself of these irritating little pests for good? (I am using large plastic Rubbermaid-type bins to store the yarn...isn't that good enough?)

:::and:::
2. What do I do about my yarn that is potentially all in bits and pieces now? Can I just wind it off in pieces or do I have to be concerned about moth eggs (or whatever they do) embedded in my precious fibers? Is there a special bath I can give my yarn? Please tell me it's not a lost cause...I'm trying to remain calm but all I can see is dollar signs and lost project dreams going down the tubes when I go down that road.

Let's all breathe in a bit of sleeping baby to calm our nerves here. She's taken to sleeping like her Grama and Mom with one arm over her face lately. I would say something about her being cute as a bug in a rug or something like that, but I'm not very fond of insects right now.
Let's call this photo "No! Not Mommy's yarn! I want more stripey pants!" instead, shall we?