Moths - The Good and the Bad

Moths in a woollen mill are a very bad thing. I have been told that they can very quickly reduce fleece or wool to a pile of dust, and so the wool stocks are kept sealed in what are essentially like large plastic sandwich bags, and I think every so often the whole building is fumigated. 

But moths at home are not much better, and I recently found that the one bear I had kept from my Teddy Bear pattern had been nibbled by moths. Poor Ted had to spend a while in my freezer, as this is meant to kill the moths, and any grubs or eggs too. (I probably should have warned my daughter that I had put him there!) I decided that darning was the best solution, and as my darning skills are not great, it was best to just going with making the darns very obvious. On his bottom he has two tradional woven darns, and the arms are my attempt at swiss darning. Even his little scarf had a hole. 

The house has now been scattered with cedar balls, as I don't really like the smell of traditional moth balls, and I have lavender hanging in the airing cupboard. But I don't want to put off all the moths.

Just to show that moths are not all bad, here are a few pictures of moths I have taken in my house in the last year. I think, but am not totally sure, that these bigger moths are not the main culprits for eating wool, so all of them were carefully put out doors. The first one is an elephant hawk moth, next a drinker, the yellow one a brimstone, the one on the green leaf might be a buff ermine, I think the last one is another type of ermine moth. Happy to be corrected on any of this!