Process

Process

Silk Reeling Process

1. Boil clean water in a pot raising temperature to 80 c. Put 40 or 50 silk cocoons into the hot water. The sticky Serricin substance will then melt thereby releasing the silk filaments.

2. Gently push floating cocoons down into the water with a forked stirrer.

3. After a certain time all the cocoons will float to the surface, they should then be gathered so that the loose filaments of delicate silk can be pulled out and spun together to creating silk threads.

4. Silk filaments when pulled gently though the forked stirrer will separate the smooth yarns from the cocoons. The silk thread is then transferred to wooden pulley, which is attached and secured to the pot, before it is placed inside a nearby basket.

5. Keep refilling the boiling pot with more cocoons.

6. When a cocoon has been completely reeled out – each cocoon is made up of a filament between 600 and 900 meters long! - the silk chrysalis will sink to the bottom of the pot and can later be cleaned out.

Silk Yarn Preparation

The Spinning Wheel is a wooden instrument used to transferring silk yarn onto small wooden bobbins. The wheel is usually made of bamboo or rattan.

The Swift (a reel for winding yarn) is another silk spinning tool, which separates and prevents the silk thread bundle from entangling. It looks like a propeller made of bamboo. Both spinning wheel and swift are normally used together in transferring silk yarn which comes in bundles onto small wooden bobbins, ready for use whether as warp or weft Threads.