drydruid and ollie’s travels

Anyone who has ever enjoyed the sumptuous feel of silk must thank the humble little silk worm.  Before leaving Xi’an, we visited a silk factory and witnessed part of the process.  Although I taught Textiles for years and can still spout the steps from memory, it was interesting to see it live.  There is no silk production in the US, so the only other time I saw it was in Thailand.

 Silk is essentially worm vomit.  The little critter grows to a stage where it needs to hybernate and then starts spewing what will harden into a silk filament around its body.  After about 30 days, it has morphed into a moth and eats it’s way through the cocoon and flies off.  A vacated cocoon will have only short pieces of fiber, so the process must be interrupted by heating the cocoon, called stoving or stifling.  One creative student years ago couldn’t remember the term on an exam and came up with ‘thermo-death’.

The legend goes that a cocoon dropped into the teacup of a Chinese princess and she noticed it unwinding. An intact cocoon will produce about a quarter mile of filament and is the finest and strongest natural fiber.  It is reeled onto spools and several strands together are then woven or knitted into cloth.

It is said that one of the former Emperors of China was enamored of western horses.  Lacking gold to buy them, he was willing to trade silk cloth and thus the Silk Road trade began.  Sadly, we are not able to follow our original plan to follow the road due to the requirement to depart China.  –  Next trip.