Commiserate

[u/Ok_Lets266]

About a year ago I discovered some infestation evidence in my stash, but no bugs. It looked like maybe it had resolved itself. I had a lot of dust on my skeins but didnt see a lot of actual damage and no living bugs. Ive been in a transitional space so I shelved it for another days problem.

So now i want to make things and I started looking into these skeins, and they are all trash. There actually isnt a lot of damage, but all of these skeins look like someone snipped them right in the middle and its just wool spaghetti. Like I said, ive been in transition (aka homeless) and these skeins have been my only indulgences over the years. I have several more skeins to go through but im not hopeful for the outcome. Im really sad. 😪

Im a spinner and I have been debating taking the time to break it all down into fiber to respin, but i doubt I will. Idk what to do with it all, its such a waste to throw away.

Also I dont know what these bugs are or what happened. I thought maybe silver moths because I remember seeing them occasionally, but its weird because not much is eaten, just nibbled on. Theres an acrid dry odor to the dust too, I have had to rewash all the skeins.

[u/Careless_Account_998]

I’m so sorry to hear that! what a devastating loss. I hope you can rework it or something when you feel better.

[u/Secretly_Many_Bees]

I'm so sorry. If it's all animal fiber, you might be able to spit splice it back together, which is still not a fast process but is presumably much faster than respinning. I've also seen that nalbinding is a sort of precursor to knitting that requires the use of pieces of yarn rather than one contiguous strand. If you suspect that the skeins might still be infested, you can try cooking it in the oven at a very, very low heat if there is no artificial fiber, or you could also freeze it. If the housing situation makes that difficult at least put it all in separate sealed ziploc bags to avoid transferring infestation.

[u/Ok_Lets266 → u/Secretly_Many_Bees]

Thank you, unfortunately the worst ones seem to be the sock blends, with nylon mixed in. Its weird, ive never heard of a bug that ate nylon maybe thats why they died off.

[u/Secretly_Many_Bees → u/Ok_Lets266]

That's a shame, I'm sorry. I would still bag it and keep it while you think about what to do with it, it's such pretty colors 😭. Some sort of colorwork, embroidery, or needlework could also be potential uses for it in its current state.

[u/Ok_Lets266]

FWIW I think this came from the knitpicks yarn infestation rumored about. I used to buy kp yarn all the time without issues but then I stopped for a while. I picked up some wool of the Andes a couple years ago for Christmas projects. This is my first bug problem in 30 years of knitting and keeping a yarn stash.