MOTH!!

(I apologise to anyone who thought that heading should've had a trigger warning.)

The thing no knitter wants to see. Having registered at Ravelry last night, I collected up some choice yarn and works in progress to take photos this morning so I've got a bit of non-identifiable content up there. Imagine my feelings when a dead moth - small, and very beige, but (at least) also very dead - fell out of my favourite skein of yarn.

Said moth was squished to oblivion (no point taking any chances) and the yarn is now soaking in the sink. Touch wood, there was no evidence of any larval activity. But it did make me think that, as my production speed isn't great at the minute and the lepidopteral season is upon us, I really ought to have the works-in-abeyance under cover. The thought of baby moths chomping through Paul's new aran before it's even done really doesn't bear thinking about.

(Although, it does make me wonder about The Kilt Hose That Will Not Die - that wool's been knocking around for the best part of 3 years, most of it spent out in the open or in open plastic bags, and nothing's touched it. A project's got to be bad if even moths avoid it.)

There was another clothes moth I found, up on one of the sealed stash boxes in the spare room. The fact that both were dead makes me wonder if there's some mystical guardian spirit in the house who sees its mission as the protection of all things yarny from voracious insects. One can fervently hope.

Edited to add: A moth just dropped out of another project - I think the kilt hose. Obviously this is a Sign that I need to take a bit more care, and spring clean the works in progress! (The only yarn that was out was the strokable stuff, and that's now going to be washed.) Again, no larval activity and the moth was dead, so it adds a bit more weight to the Yarn Guardian theory, at least.