Perils of Weaving

I have been sweeping up piles of dust (with a good amount of Asian Beetles, both dead and alive) in the workshop with every project on which I work. Most of the dust appears to be directly sloughed off from the wool blankets that I use for rugs and is made up of very fine particles that tend to clump together when I 'sweep' it into piles.

A pile of dust swept up at the end of one work session.

I tend to 'clean up' at the end of most days working in the workshop, so for each project there are lots of dust piles. I began to wonder how much of this very fine stuff is making its way into my lungs??

I have mentioned before how very much I love this rag cutter. It saves me considerable time in cutting strips for rugs as well as provides a precision that I cannot seem to get with a rotary cutter. BUT I have found that this device generates vast amounts of fine wool dust with every strip cut. (In addition, while weaving on the loom, much dust is generated that collects underneath it.) As I stand almost directly over it (and the loom) while cutting or weaving, I am sure that I inhale some of those particles. This is distressing in itself, but for someone with chronic sinus problems doubly so. A while back I tried using the standard dust mask used for painting, etc. It was extremely uncomfortable, fogged up my glasses, and was simply miserable to wear while working. So I decided to make a mask out of some pretty colored gauze fabric that I have.

This 'mask' is nothing fancy, but it is comfortable and it does not fog up my glasses while I am wearing it.

I hesitated including this photo thinking that I might lose some of the few readers that I have. When I tried it on for Iris however, she just said, "Ohhhh, Nonnie...." If I didn't lose her I ventured that I might not lose any of you either.

This is the latest rug off the Herald loom, and the one I worked on while utilizing the dust mask. I wonder what other weavers of wool do in order not to breathe in the wool dust??

When I am lucky enough to find old wool blankets at thrift stores, I always come home and launder them, however I never thought to launder the new blanket ends I got from Faribault or Pendleton. I didn't launder them with ridding them of dust particles in mind, but maybe it does, I don't know. Perhaps I need to launder all the wool blankets and ends prior to cutting and weaving?

Any hints out there???