My freezer is full of … yarn

A few times, I’ve pulled out a new skein of yarn for a project and merrily stitching along, all the sudden I’m out of yarn. Mid-skein. I look and there’s the rest of the skein sitting there, with a break in the yarn.

“Those kids!” I’ve mumbled, sure that my kids took a pair of scissors to my yarn. But it slowly dawned on me.  If anything, my kids would take the whole ball for a craft project, not cut into it.  And I’m way in the middle of the skein, how would they reach this section anyway?  So I realized it was probably an even smaller culprit.

Moths.  Clue – it was mainly the wool yarns that were broken. My kids really wouldn’t differentiate which yarn to ruin.

Back in the recesses of my brain, I remembered hints to freeze yarn to get rid of moths. I took all my wool and wool-content yarns from the cute, open, plastic bins with a basket-weave design and put them in plastic bags and bins.  All my yarn would not fit in the freezer, given that there is, you know, food in there.  The bags went into the freezer and, since it’s been quite cold around here, I decided to take advantage of Mother Nature. The bins are out in the garage.  It may not be consistently cold enough out there to kill the moths and larvae, but I figure it might slow them down until those bags' rotation into the freezer.

The articles I read recommend a week in the cold freeze to get rid of the little yarn munchers.  With a weekly rotation, we should be moth free by spring.  After that, I’m switching bins.

My new moth-proof yarn storage bins

I picked up these close-top bins, the “sweater boxes” from Container Store.  They work well because they're clear so I can see what's in them.  Any kind of closed, can't see into containers are terrible for my forgetful self.  I also read that lavender is a natural deterrent. Maybe I’ll put some sachets in the bins.

Here's to being moth-free.  How do you store your yarn?  Do you have any other yarn-saving tips?

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances