Mothballs are bad news, and you almost certainly should not be using them on your yarn. In addition to being carcinogenic, mothball residue can cause anemia in children who wear garments that have been mothballed. There are far better ways to store your yarn, including sealed inside plastic storage containers and buckets with lids. Or maybe sell it off and reduce your stash, just sayin'.
But regardless, many of us will eventually face the prospect of yarn that smells like mothballs. Whether it is a gift or an unwise purchase, mothballed yarn can hang onto that smell like crazy.
This might seem surprising, given that smells in general do not cling to wool yarn. (Just one of wool's many magical powers.) But it is how mothballs work: the chemicals in them sublimate into a gas, which permeates their surrounding materials and clings there, providing long-term toxic results to any unwary bugs (or children).
The first thing to try is to re-skein the yarn loosely, then hang it out in the sun to air out for a few days. The heat from the sun will help get the chemicals to release back into the air.
If this doesn't work, some people have reported good results with repeatedly washing the skeins with vinegar. Be sure to use cool water, and don't agitate or swish them around too much. You don't want the yarn to felt.
If the smell persists, then you might want to try the next level cure: box up the yarn with crumpled newspaper and aquarium charcoal. Change the charcoal and the newspaper every three days. They should absorb the mothball smells.
And finally, I found one forum user who said she cured this problem by spraying the yarn with Febreeze. More of a workaround than a fix, I suppose, but hey, if it works, you can't argue with results!
Image courtesy Flickr/CraftyGoat
0 comments