author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

On the occasion of Shuttles Spindles Skeins's monthly spin-in-and-knit-in, I brought home my spinning wheel and fiber stash from our rented storage unit. Some of the fiber appears to have sustained new moth activity, so none of it's coming into the house until I've had a chance to evaluate, treat, and adequately store each individually. Until then, it stays in our storage closet in the parking garage.

Exception #1: My portion of the brown fleece off Sheepfeathers Farm's "Daphne" seems to have escaped the moths' hunger entirely. I pawed through it and found no visible eggs, "confetti" debris, or broken fibers. Still, it was stored close to the other fibers, so it gets put into several gallon-sized resealable bags, and they go inside a lidded plastic bin of their own.

Exception #2: What is left of the half-fleece of black lamb's wool (probably CVM) after I discovered moths in it last year, I've felt confident assuming it's clean of moths now. This is because at the time of the moth discovery, I went into emergency anti-month action. All the bits that had been chewed on got thrown into the compost. What remained, about three-fourths of the original amount of wool, got washed in very hot water. Then it all went out on the balcony to dry and then to freeze and thaw repeatedly at the mercy of the incoming winter. Then it all got put into a big black plastic bag, which got aggressively tied closed. As the bag had no holes in it that I could find, I presumed the wool clean enough to take to the spin-in without endangering others' fiber.

Discovering moths in fiber that I'd last touched months or even years ago is doubly distressing. First off, I paid good money for that wool, I maybe already put good effort into washing it and spinning it, and I had plans for its potential. That potential has now been trashed, or at least significantly curtailed. Secondly, it feels like a rebuke: "If you'd only washed and spun and knit me sooner, instead of procrastinating like you always do, this wouldn't have happened." (The parallel with long-neglected writing projects is an exercise left to the reader.)

Taking action helps. Spinning a good ten or fifteen locks of the black lamb at the spin-in tonight, that helps. Bringing the fiber home and enacting a plan to treat and store it all correctly, that helps too. Deciding that I will spin Every! Single! Day! helps, too, but is probably overly optimistic of me. I haven't actually practiced the piano since bringing the bench home from repair. But I could if I wanted to! And now that the spinning wheel and drop-spindles are home, spinning is a possibility too.

Bunch of other things came home: more sheet music, a couple boxes of T-shirts and jeans waiting to be turned into quilts, all but one of the musical instruments, and a couple of boxes of Random Things. I'm daunted by how much is still in there, though. When we were in the throes of house-moving, we promised ourselves we'd clear out of the rented storage unit in six weeks. But it took us six weeks just to feel like we'd put enough stuff away to justify bringing more stuff into the house. So we're behind schedule on it. So what else is new.

But the spinning wheel is home. So is the majority of the sheet music. These things make me happy.