Disarrrrsters

Knitting on the Diatom Shawl continues apace - I am on row 168 of 182 now, so the end is in sight. It was, of course, at this point that I discovered the ball of contrast colour 4 is missing from the bag. Of course it is. I checked the photograph from my stash and it was definitely in there at some point. Of course it was. I had a half-hearted rummage through my downstairs craft box, where the rest of the bag was, but it didn't turn anything up, so today, with a big sigh and an anti-histamine, I prepared to turn out the chest of yarn where the bag had been stored. This wasn't too depressing, because it also holds the yarn for my intended next project, so two birds with one stone, and everything.

Except, it's not there. Of course it's not. That would be too easy. It is very definitely Missing. I will have a look behind the sofa and a proper look in the downstairs box but, if nothing, I am going to have to order a new ball on Tuesday, or do extra rows in CC2, 3 and 5, which I don't want to do. Thankfully it is still in production, and in stock at Great British Yarns.

This is disastrous enough but falls really into the category of minor annoyance compared to the second disaster. Rummaging for something last month, I discovered a little of the yarn I had bought at Wonderwool last year had been lightly mothed. I was not too concerned - it was only a little, and it was in the basket of yarn that lived downstairs until we had the floors done, and I've had moths nomming the downstairs stuff before, so - meh.

However, today I pulled out all the yarn from the basket as I rummaged for the missing Palette and the scale is much greater than I realised. There's a second batch of yarn, that I have already wound, that has one very mothed cake in it (woe, woe is me) and, worst, at the bottom of the basket is the cardigan/wrap waistcoat I began knitting in 2013 and it has been mothed beyond all rescue.

I can't believe I have to get rid of it and I never even finished it! This pattern was also a gift from a knitting group friend who died a few years ago, which makes it doubly sad. I might felt it and use it as a blanket for the rabbits. Darn moths.

And possibly the worst is, that I've never had a problem with eating moths upstairs - only downstairs. But now I realise I might have inadvertently introduced them into my stash room by storing the infested basket in there. The vast majority of my yarn is already stored in airtight plastic anyway, luckily, but I can see that this week now includes to job of bagging up anything not already bagged. That must make me pretty much the only person hoping for a rainy day this week.