I cleaned out my sweater collection this spring to weed out the out dated and over worn. I was alarmed to see that 5 of my sweaters; one never WORN were ravaged by moths. *sigh*. And, those weren’t even the ones I was going to get rid of!
I frantically checked for the precious keepsakes; the big fat sweater Mom made for me in the eighties, the beautiful printed sweater Aunt Joan gave me when she moved to FL – a hand made find from Maine which I had always loved, something I spent way too much on at Anthropologie: Check. They were OK. But, I knew something had to be done.
I did a fair amount of research online and discovered a wool wash called Eucalan Delicate Wash that was very gentle and way safer than Woolite. It was easier to wash the big ones with it because it doesn’t have suds and needs very little rinsing. I was off in a frenzy of sweater washing, flat drying and responsible folding which took a couple of weeks!
Then I had to figure out what to use to deter the moths. I found a “recipe” and made a huge batch of it:
2 ounces each dried rosemary and mint
1 ounce dried thyme
8 ounces whole cloves
Cedar chips soaked in cedar oil
Lavender soaked in lavender oil
Moth Mixture
I had to make my own cedar and lavender with essential oils from the health food store
Then split it up into small cotton tea bags.
The next thing I found was that people suggested sealing the sweaters in plastic boxes wrapped in old cotton. I opted for sealing them in the large Ziploc bags, wrapped in old pillow cases and then storing those in canvas boxes – sachets inside and outside the bags. That way I can store them in the canvas boxes in winter without the bags.
Sachet inside Cotton inside Plastic inside Canvas Box
After the bags were sealed, I closed them up in the boxes.
I labeled the boxes and put them back in the closet; fingers crossed!
