Diaster neatly averted

Those of you who know me in real life and/or follow the blog know that I have an issue with being told I am not allowed to do something. Even when it's me deciding that I am not allowed to do something.

So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that moments after yesterday's blog post went "live"...I pulled out my spinning wheel (and didn't knit a stitch of the cursed hood).

I figured I'd just spin up a bit of the pretty red mohair I scored at the HRM WWKIP Day swap. I figured it would be a good refresher before working on the good stuff.

I set up my wheel, let my children explore it a little bit in the hopes that they would get it out of their system (both of my boys are fascinated by the wheel). I set up the fibre and started to spin.

I found some vegetable matter, picked them away. Then I noticed some sand as I went and brushed that off too.

Wait. Sand? That's sort of weird, isn't it? I look a bit closer and see all sorts of "sand" throughout as I'm letting the fibre move through my fingers.

Then it hits me. That is NOT sand.

And those little flecks...

are bits of MOTH WINGS!!!!!!

I cried out. I stopped the wheel immediately and stared for a moment in disbelief.

Then I gathered up every last scrap of that fibre and bagged it, then bagged it again and buried it in the trash. Even the stuff that was still in it's sealed baggie went. Then I vacuumed all around where my wheel was, the chair I had been sitting in, and tossed out the fibre that had been in the box with the offending red stuff (luckily that was also some cheap roving I got in the swap, it was scratchy and I hadn't spun with it because I didn't like the feel. Your guess is as good as mine as to why it was still in the fibre stash). I looked over the stash that was no where near the infected stuff and all was well.

That could have been very very bad. But I am very sure I got it all and I've been combing through everything since just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Honestly, it's unlikely that it got anywhere else since the offending red stuff was in sealed baggies and I hadn't opened them yet.

In order to recover from my shock, I did some more spinning. This time I used the Fleece Artist merino braid I bought the day I got my driver's license. The result is a small bit of wonky yarn, likely not enough to do anything big with. But it's very pretty.


And 100% moth egg free.