At all times, natural silk has been valued for its unique qualities, but few people know what causes these qualities. In this article we decided to touch on the topic of the origin of the most famous natural fabric.

The world leader in the production of natural silk, as befits the homeland of this material, is China. For many centuries, Chinese silk has been valued all over the world. This reputation is justified by the high quality and fineness of the resulting thread. It should be noted the complex production technologies that the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom have developed and improved for more than one century.

Today, India and Uzbekistan are serious competitors to China in sericulture, which occupy second and third places in the ranking of world silk production. Brazil, Iran and Thailand are also significant producers.

The commercial process of making high-quality silk is very complex and time-consuming. The quality of the resulting silk thread directly depends on human care.

Main secret The process of high-quality silk is that the silkworms are always fed, and the butterflies do not have time to emerge from the cocoons.

Let's look at the main stages of silk production:

• The appearance of the silkworm

The first stage of silk production is placing silk butterfly eggs in an incubator, in which they are stored for 10 days at a temperature of 18-20 ° C. At a time, the female can lay up to 400 eggs. After incubation, larvae (caterpillars) are born from them.

• Feeding the caterpillars

After birth, the caterpillars are placed under a thin layer of gauze and served to them large number crushed mulberry leaves. By feeding on such food, silkworms can produce the finest and most lustrous silk.
During this period human care very important for larvae. Loud sounds, drafts and foreign odors can kill the silkworm, and the mulberry leaves fed to them should be dry and finely chopped. To do this, farmers turn the leaves over in the sun until they are completely dry.

The larvae feed heavily for 6 weeks and increase their original weight by 10,000 times. During this long period, they shed their skin several times and subsequently acquire a white-gray color.

The sound of silkworms chewing is often compared to rain falling on a roof.

The feeding process continues until the silkworms accumulate enough energy to enter the cocoon stage.

• Creating a cocoon

When it comes time to build cocoons, silkworms begin to produce a jelly-like substance in their silk glands that hardens when it comes into contact with air.

During the pupation period of four to eight days, the caterpillar attaches itself to a wooden frame and spins the cocoon until it is sufficiently tight. At the same time, the silkworm turns its body about 300 thousand times along the contour of the number “8” and produces about a kilometer of silk thread.

• Winding the thread

After a week in a warm, dry place, the cocoons are ready to unwind. To do this, they are placed in a special container and treated with steam and hot water to kill the worms. Then the silk fibers begin to unwind from the cocoon, using simultaneously 5-8 units to create one strong thread.

Video of the process of “winding” threads

• Fabric creation

Raw silk contains sericin, which is removed with soap and boiling water, after which the threads are combed. As a result of this procedure, the silk becomes more shiny, but loses up to 30% of its weight.

It takes 5,000 silkworms to produce a kilogram of silk.

Finally, the spinning process begins and the silk threads are turned into fabric, which is subsequently hand-dyed.

Broken threads and damaged cocoons are processed into yarn and sold as "silk", which is inferior in quality to the reeled product but costs much less.

As a result of such a complex and labor-intensive process, a light and exquisite fabric is obtained, from which silk dresses, silk blouses, silk shirts and natural silk scarves are produced.

The Khan Cashmere chain of salons offers accessories and clothing made from natural silk.

2 This is how ready-to-pupate larvae are spoiled.

3 On these flat wicker baskets.

4 The chicken wants to eat a larva or two, but they chase her away)

6 When we arrived, it was lunch break, the girls were eating, and we walked around the empty room, poked our noses everywhere, and took aim. It was twilight there and I stubbornly couldn’t get sharp shots and I was really upset that everything was gone, but I took off the polarizer, turned up the sensitivity and it seemed like everything worked out more or less, hurray!

7 At first there was absolute silence and everything stood still and we could not understand what was what. But suddenly everything around began to rustle, crackle, move, spin, and the girls stood up at the machines.

8 They use chopsticks to take a clump of cocoons and first place them in a saucepan of boiling water so that the larvae cook and die. The smell there is a little nauseating, the smell is similar to boiled meat, only more specific. Later, when we bought scarves, they were saturated with this smell and even after I washed it, there was still a little left, buh.

9 Cocoons are boiled in a saucepan like this.

10 Boiled and wet cocoons.

12 I used to think that they always look for the very tip of the thread in the cocoon in order to unwind it. In fact, I realized that this is, of course, nonsense, they are simply pulling a cobweb from the surface. Here you can see how the thread goes from each cocoon.

14 And here is the second myth. I thought that the thread from the cocoon was the final thread. This is wrong. Silk thread is twisted from several micro-threads. The number of these threads determines the thickness of the finished thread and, accordingly, the thickness of the future fabric. Do you see a row of "spirits"? So, these are not scents, but threads from cocoons. The girl brings a bunch of threads with her finger to these quickly spinning pimples and the threads seem to be sucked in there and twisted.

19 Ready-made skeins of silk thread.

27 Barrigadir))

28 Unwound cocoons look like this.

29 I took this photo last year in the COOP market. Then I had no idea that these were “silk” larvae. I'm not 100 percent sure, but they are very similar and logically fit. Otherwise, where else would they put the spent larvae?)

30 There are also several looms here where they weave simple fabric. At the top left of the machine you can see a stack of punched cards hanging.

31 These are cards in which the fabric pattern is encoded. A thread is passed through each hole and then they are cleverly moved on the machine and a pattern is magically created.

36 And on this machine I make coarse silk burlap. We don’t understand why, maybe purely for decorative purposes.

37 And on this single machine they make threads according to the same principle as the others, but only thick and with knots, boucle threads.

39 From these threads these scarves are then made. My mom and I bought these for just 6 bucks, different colors. They smelled like boiled maggots)

40 Dyed fabrics are drying in the yard.

41 The choice of fabrics here is very small.

43 This is where scarves are hemmed and fringes are made.

44 And here they do embroidery. But it’s also very simple. There is no crazy beauty here. All beauty is from XQ factory.

Views: 5705

13.06.2017

With history silkworm, thanks to which such a wonderful fabric as natural silk appeared ( lat. Mulberry) is associated with a huge number of ancient fictions and legends.

This material, amazing in quality, is produced by unsightly-looking caterpillars, which, eating the leaves of the mulberry tree (for us, the name mulberry is more familiar), process them, creating an amazingly thin and strong silk thread from which they weave their cocoons.

Silkworm ( lat. Bombyx mori ) is a butterfly from the insect family " Real silkworms", A " Bombyx mori"translated from Latin literally means "death of the silkworm" or "dead silk." This tragic name is explained by the fact that a living butterfly is deliberately not allowed to leave the cocoon, so the insect, suffocating, dies inside it (more on this sad fact below).

Cocoons can be various colors and shades, which depends primarily on the type of silkworm, but white color is considered the highest in quality, since it contains the highest percentage of silk protein.

Currently, silk production is most developed in China, Japan and India.

Adult insect

It is assumed that the silkworm moth descended from its wild relative, which previously lived in the mulberry thickets of ancient China. According to some historical data, the culture of creating silk originated about five thousand years ago, and during this time the insect was completely domesticated and even lost the ability to fly (only male insects fly during the mating period).

The silkworm butterfly is a fairly large insect with a wingspan of up to six centimeters. It is noteworthy that immediately before pupation it can increase in height to nine (!) centimeters.

Egg

Having hatched from the cocoon, the adult female mates with the male, after which she lays eggs over the course of four to six days, covering them with a dense shell called Greena. During this period, the moth does not feed on anything, since it oral apparatus is underdeveloped.

Silkworm embryos are small and light yellow or milky in color. Having laid from three hundred to six hundred eggs (sometimes the number of eggs in the egg laying can reach eight hundred), the silkworm butterfly dies.

Larva

After about a week, a small dark brown larva emerges from the embryo (the silkworm caterpillar is often called “ silkworm") about two to three millimeters long.

From birth, the larva has an excellent appetite, so it feeds around the clock, happily eating juicy mulberry leaves.

Silkworm caterpillars are very sensitive to temperature and humidity, are intolerant of strong odors and cannot tolerate loud sounds, but if external conditions habitats are quite favorable, the larvae sharply gain weight, day after day, increasing the rate of consumption of plant food. In the rooms where silkworms are raised, there is a continuous hum from the monotonous work of many jaws, as if light rain were drumming on a metal roof.

It’s hard to imagine that these babies have more than four thousand muscles in their tiny bodies, which is eight times (!) more than a human’s.

During the growing season, the silkworm larva goes through four stages or phases of maturation, and the first molt occurs already on the fifth day from the day of birth, while the caterpillar stops feeding, and, tightly clinging to the leaf, hibernates for a day. Having woken up, the caterpillar sharply straightens its body, causing the old skin to burst and the grown insect, freed from its previous clothes, attacks the food with renewed vigor.

After four molts, the caterpillar's body increases in size by more than thirty (!) times and their body acquires a yellowish tint.

Doll

In total, the silkworm caterpillar grows and develops for about a month, and immediately before pupation the larva loses all interest in food.

Under the lower lip of the insect there are special glands capable of producing a silky gelatinous substance, which, when hardened, turns into a thin silk thread.

Ninety percent of the silkworm thread consists of protein. In addition, it contains salts, fats, wax and adhesive substances. sericin, which prevents the threads from falling apart, tightly fastening them to each other.

When the time comes, the caterpillar attaches its body to a strong base and begins to form a frame around itself in the form of a fine mesh, and then weaves the cocoon itself, winding the thread around itself in a figure eight.

After three to four days, the cocoon is completely ready, and the total length of the thread in the finished cocoon can reach from three hundred meters to one and a half (!) kilometers.

It is noteworthy that male silkworms make cocoons more carefully, so they are somewhat denser to the touch, and the length of the silk thread in the male cocoon is longer.

After about eight to nine days, the cocoons can be collected and untwisted to obtain a thread of unique quality. If this process is late, then an adult insect will emerge from it ( imago) in the form of a butterfly, which will damage the shell of the cocoon and the thread will end up torn.

As mentioned earlier, the butterfly has an underdeveloped oral apparatus, therefore it is not able to gnaw through the shell of the cocoon and, in order to fly out, it secretes a special substance with saliva that dissolves top part cocoon, damaging the threads. To avoid this, butterflies are artificially killed directly in cocoons using hot air, treating the pupae for two hours. This process kills the butterfly, so that the name of this insect species (" Death of the Silkworm") completely justifies itself.

After unwinding the thread, the dead pupa is eaten (usually in China and Korea) as it is rich in protein and nutrients.

The process of creating silk thread

Currently, silkworms are mainly raised artificially.

The cocoons are collected, sorted by color, size and prepared for subsequent unwinding, for which they are dipped in boiling water. This process is still done by hand, since the cocoon thread is very thin and requires special care to unwind it.

To create a raw thread, when unwinding, from three to ten silk threads are connected together, and all the same natural sericin helps to carefully tie all the ends together.

Raw silk is wound into yarn and sent to a weaving factory for further processing and production of a wonderful fabric highly valued throughout the world.

Legend has it that the first person who came up with the idea of ​​weaving yarn from silk thread was the legendary Chinese Empress Lei Zu (also known as Xi Lingshi), walking through a mulberry garden with a cup of hot tea, into which a silkworm cocoon suddenly fell. Trying to get it, the empress pulled a thin thread, causing the cocoon to unwind.

Lei Zu convinced her husband (the legendary ruler of China Huang Di or “ Yellow Emperor") to provide her with a grove of mulberry trees where she could breed caterpillars that produce cocoons. She is also credited with the invention of a special spool that combines thin threads into one strong thread suitable for weaving, and the invention of the silk loom.

In modern China, Lei Zu is an object of worship and bears the honorary title " Silkworm Mother».

Production of natural silk is a very labor-intensive, but also the most amazing process in the modern textile industry. The technology invented in ancient times has remained virtually unchanged to this day.

For natural silk production today, like 4000 years ago, they use the thread of the cocoon of the silkworm, which is also called the “silkworm”. Fabric produced with the help of the silkworm is the most expensive and widespread in the world.
Produce silk first started in China, and for a long time the specifics of production were kept a great secret. And until now, China holds a leading position in the world market for silk production.

Modern production includes not only the process of obtaining silk thread, but also the breeding of silkworms. In a relatively short life, one caterpillar can produce several thousand meters of valuable silk thread, and the percentage of defects in such production is negligible.

The adult silkworm is a thick butterfly with whitish wings. Insects feed exclusively on the foliage of the mulberry tree, or mulberry. Early spring or in summer the butterfly lays eggs, which are stored until next spring. As soon as leaves appear on the mulberry trees, the eggs are placed in specialized incubators, where the temperature gradually increases. Then the caterpillar appears, and the insect remains in this stage for 21 to 34 days.

The caterpillars are constantly in the process of eating leaves, and accordingly they grow quite quickly, increasing their weight by 10-12 thousand times. As soon as the insect's head darkens, this means that the insect begins to molt. After four molts, the caterpillar's body turns yellow, the skin becomes denser, and the silk-secreting glands are filled with protein fluid. The caterpillar is placed on special devices- cocoonniks, releases a thin thread and weaves a cocoon from it, wrapping itself around itself - this is how the transformation into a pupa begins. After about two weeks, the pupa becomes a butterfly.

In order to free itself from the cocoon, the butterfly secretes an alkaline liquid that dissolves the cocoon threads. However, the cocoon should not be damaged, otherwise holes may appear in the shells, and such cocoons are quite difficult to unwind. Therefore, cocoons are specially treated with hot air or kept for several hours at high temperature about 100 °C, as a result of which the caterpillar dies and the cocoon easily unwinds. The cocoons are then dried and sorted. Thin silk threads consist of two silks, which are glued together with the substance sericin. In order to obtain a denser and stronger thread, when unwinding, the threads from several cocoons are connected, while sericin firmly glues the threads to each other. The resulting threads are carefully sorted, laid and woven into a single fabric.

Even though natural silk production is a labor-intensive process, this technology and the high price of the material are fully justified due to its unique properties. Thus, natural silk has the ability to instantly regulate temperature, silk products are also well ventilated, do not accumulate static electricity, the fabric is very elastic and durable.

Video - how silk is produced:

Silk – soft fabric from threads extracted from the cocoon of the silkworm. Silk originally originated from China and was an important commodity that was transported to Europe by Silk Road. Fiber thickness is 20–30 micrometers. The length of the silk thread (mulberry) from one cocoon reaches 400–1500 m. The thread has a triangular cross-section and, like a prism, refracts light, which causes a beautiful iridescence and shine.

Currently, the largest producer of silk is China (about 50% of total world production). India produces about 15% of the world's silk, followed by Uzbekistan (about 3%) and Brazil (about 2.5%). Iran, Thailand and Vietnam are also significant producers.

Story

Legends about the appearance of silk in China

Silk is a waste product of the silkworm, which spins a strong cocoon around itself. But who was the first (or the first) to guess to unravel this cocoon and twist the thread, and then weave the fabric? There are many legends about this in China. The most famous of them connects the emergence of sericulture with Leizu, the eldest wife of the mythical Emperor Huang Di, who, according to traditional sources, ruled the Celestial Empire from 2698 to 2598 BC. e.

One day a young woman was drinking tea in the garden, under a mulberry tree. And several silkworm cocoons accidentally fell into the cup. She began to take them out, the cocoons began to unwind into a long thread. Then Leizu began to pick off the remaining cocoons hanging on the tree and unwind them. She wove fabric from the received threads and sewed clothes for her husband. Huang Di, having learned about this discovery, improved the methods of breeding silkworms and producing silk. This is how sericulture and silk weaving appeared.

Thanks to her discovery, Leizu also began to be called Xiling-chi - the Lady of the silkworm and she began to be considered the patron goddess of sericulture. Until now, in early April, festivals are held in honor of Leizu in Zhejiang province.

According to another legend, the most fantastic, there once lived a father and daughter, and they had a magic horse that not only could fly in the skies, but also understood human language. One day the father went about his business and disappeared. Then his daughter made an oath: if the horse could find her father, then she would marry this horse. The horse found his father, and they returned home together. However, when the father learned about this oath, he was shocked, and in order to prevent this marriage, he killed an innocent horse. But when they began to skin the carcass, the horse’s skin suddenly picked up the girl and carried her away. They flew and flew, and finally landed on a mulberry tree. And the moment the girl touched the branches, she turned into a silkworm. She released long and thin threads from herself that expressed her feeling of separation from her beloved horse.

Another legend says that women Ancient China Silk was discovered completely by accident. They were collecting fruits from trees and came across strange fruits white, too hard to eat. Then they began to boil them to soften them, but they were hardly fit for food. Eventually, the women lost patience and began to beat them with thick sticks. And it was then that silk and silkworms were discovered. It turned out that the white fruit was nothing more than the cocoon of a silkworm!

History of silk production

Existing legends are just beautiful legends of antiquity. According to archaeological data, the properties of the silkworm and the secret of making silk were known already 5 thousand years ago. Thus, during archaeological excavations in various areas of China in the cultural layers of the 3rd millennium BC. Fragments of silkworm cocoons were found.

The first silk fabrics were very rare and expensive, so they were worn only by rulers and their family members. In all likelihood, inside the palace they dressed in white clothes, and on ceremonial occasions - in yellow ones. With the expansion of production, silk gradually became available to the court and then to wider sections of the population.

Gradually, a real cult of silk arose in China. Old Chinese texts mention sacrifices to the Silkworm God, as well as sacred mulberry groves and the veneration of individual mulberry trees.

Making silk fabric

Fibrous raw materials successively go through the stages of sorting, tattering (to loosen the compressed mass of fibers and partially remove impurities), soaking and further drying (to remove sericin). This is followed by several stages of carding (converting the mass of fibers into combed fly with oriented fibers), during which long-fiber and short-fiber toil are formed, used to obtain yarn with different properties. Next comes the stage of twisting the threads, from which the fabric will be made later in the weaving stage.

Finishing silk fabrics to give them beneficial properties consists of boiling stages (in a soap solution at a temperature of about 95 degrees for 1.5-3 hours to completely remove sericin, coloring and fatty substances); dyeing; revitalization (treatment with a solution of acetic acid for 15-30 minutes at a temperature of 30 ° C to add shine and richness to the color (for dyed fabrics)). Optional: to obtain white silk, the raw material is bleached with an alkaline solution of hydrogen peroxide at a temperature of 70 °C for 8-12 hours; To obtain silk with a pattern, an airbrush application method using stencils (for single copies) or hardware application of a pattern using mesh templates is used. The final finishing for all types of raw materials is decatification - treatment with hot steam under pressure for several minutes to relieve intramolecular stress in the fiber structure.

Types of silk

The difference between natural silk and artificial silk

“Fake silk” is woven from threads derived from cellulose materials.
It differs from the real one in less wear resistance, does not stimulate regeneration processes, lacks the ability to repel harmful insects, and is prone to electrification.

How is artificial silk determined?

• does not have an iridescent sheen, artificial fabric “glows” dimly;
• Unlike polyester fabrics, even the smooth appearance of silk has some errors on the surface;
• chill silk is woven from artificial threads;
• silk threads are dissolved in a warm 10% alkali solution;
• ignited artificial fibers emit the smell of burning plastic or wood;
• when clenched in a fist, creases with clear lines are formed.

Properties of silk

• Natural silk has a unique, pleasant, moderate shine that does not fade over the years. In the rays of the sun, silk fabric will sparkle and shimmer, playing with different shades depending on the angle of incidence of the light.
• Silk is highly hygroscopic (all silk fabrics absorb moisture equal to half their own weight and dry very quickly).
• Appearance of threads: white, slightly creamy, smooth, long (about 1000m), thin, soft.
• The thickness of the elementary thread is 10-12 microns, the complex thread is 32 microns.
• Silk is so light that 1 kg of finished fabric contains from 300 to 900 kilometers of thread.
• Silk has good mechanical properties: breaking stress is about 40 kgf/mm? (1 kgf/mm?=107n/m?); elongation at break 14–18%.
• In the wet state, the breaking stress drops by 10%, and the elongation at break increases by 10%.
• Silk is not very resistant to alkalis (it is quickly destroyed in a 5% NaOH solution); more resistant to mineral acids. Insoluble in ordinary organic solvents.
• Silk does not stretch or shrink
• Silk drapes beautifully. This property allows silk to be used not only to create clothing of almost any shape, but also for curtains, bed linen and other home furnishings.
• Silk's resistance to light is low. When hitting straight sun rays Silk degrades faster than other natural fibers.
• Features of combustion: burns slowly, when removed from the flame the combustion itself extinguishes, there is a faint smell of burnt hair, the combustion product is black fluffy brittle ash.
• The production of silk is associated with high labor costs, which makes it one of the most expensive textile materials.

Application

As already indicated, the areas of use of this material are very extensive. Let's look at each of them in more detail.

Interior decoration

In the 90s of the last century, a new type of wall decoration appeared in European countries. For this, wet silk was used - a special plaster containing natural fibers. Wet silk was used in the decoration of elite premises. Now the wet silk look of decor has become more accessible.

Owners of entertainment venues should pay attention to wet silk. This material has an excellent texture, it does not burn or smolder, so from the point of view fire safety– ideal. In addition, the wet finishing material is very beautiful and durable.

Tailoring

This is perhaps the most common area of ​​application for silk fabrics. For tailoring, both natural and acetate silk are used, which differ slightly in properties. The fine silk fabric of plain weave perfectly accentuates the figure, is comfortable to wear and durable.

Parachute silk, which is highly durable, is often used to make wardrobe items. This type is also used in the production of various products: tents, seat and furniture upholstery, etc.

Home textiles

Beautiful shiny fabric looks great in the interior. It is used to make curtains, bed linen, furniture covers, bedspreads and much more.

Silk is an absolutely non-allergenic material. Dust mites and bedbugs do not breed on it. Therefore, this thin fabric is best suited for people suffering from allergies.

Medicine

Mulberry silk has the ability to absorb moisture to a much greater extent than other materials. However, it is not at all wet to the touch. Therefore, it is actively used in medicine.

It is an excellent suture material used in surgery. The suture material does not dissolve for up to 3 months. Also, suture silk causes a minor initial inflammatory reaction in living tissue. Silk suture material is even used in ophthalmic and neurosurgery.

Needlework

This fabric makes excellent souvenirs. Mulberry silk or artificial silk is used in embroidery of paintings. When visiting the Vietnamese city of Dalat, tourists must visit the workshop of a family of embroiderers. There are very expensive unique canvases, hand-embroidered with natural silk threads on transparent fabric.

Buret silk (or other natural silk) is also used in knitting. Exquisite knitted items are made from it by hand or on special machines.

Care

In order for a silk product to serve for a long time and delight you with its beauty for many years, you must follow simple rules:

1. Silk scarves (scarves and other products) must be washed by hand, in warm (30-40 degrees) water, without pre-soaking, without bleaches.
2. For washing, use mild detergents for silk (such as Laska), neutral shampoo or baby soap. Pour water into a bowl, add a couple of drops (you don’t need much) of detergent, shake it until foamy. Only after this, lower the silk into the water.
3. When washing and rinsing, it is not recommended to rub silk with your hands, because The fabric is very delicate and can lose its beauty under strong pressure. Swirl the fabric in the soapy solution for a couple of minutes, lift it out of the water several times and lower it down. After such simple movements in a soap solution, the silk can be rinsed in cool water. However, during the first washes, slight coloration of the water may occur. Don't be scared! If the water remains the same clear, but is slightly colored, the product does not lose color. This is excess paint coming out of very bright products.
4. To refresh the color, it is advisable to rinse the silk in cool water with the addition of vinegar (2 tablespoons per 10 liters of water). The water should be slightly sour. But you don’t have to do this. Rinse the silk and drain the water until no foam remains.
5. The silk must be squeezed out carefully, without twisting. Don’t forget that silk, even satin, is a very soft and delicate fabric! Squeeze it between both hands until the water stops flowing. After this, you can wring it out in a clean towel.
6. It is better to dry silk straightened out, away from heating devices, so as not to form wrinkles, which you will then have to wet again to smooth it out. The exception is silk dyed using the shibori method, when the fabric is specially given texture. After the final wash, it is twisted into a rope (not too much) and dried without unrolling.
7. It is best to iron silk while it is damp, because... Silk is smoothed better when wet with the hottest possible iron in the “cotton” mode. Natural silk is not afraid of temperature and will not melt like artificial (viscose and acetate) or synthetic (polyester and nylon) fabrics. On the wrong side, in the “silk” mode, you should also iron dyed items. acrylic paint and having a contour (convex) pattern. For reliability, it is better to iron them through a thin cotton cloth.
8. Avoid contact with silk products chemicals(perfume, cream, hairspray, deodorant). This can cause paints to lose their brightness or even become discolored. To prevent this from happening, tie a scarf after the perfume has dried.
9. Gently wipe sweat stains and other heavily soiled areas with alcohol.

1. To produce 500 grams of silk, you need about 3 thousand silkworm cocoons. It takes 12 hours of work to form a skein of silk thread weighing 250 grams.
2. Silk thread has amazing strength, it can withstand strong pressure and is very tensile. It was recently discovered that 16 layers of silk can withstand a .357 Magnum bullet (with a lead core).
3. Products made from natural silk do not harbor dust mites. Silk owes this property to sericin. Sericin, silk glue, viscous protein of natural silk. Most of it is washed out during processing (washing) of silk in hot water, but what remains is enough to resist the appearance of dust mites. Thanks to this, natural silk is absolutely hypoallergenic.
4. You can distinguish natural silk from non-natural silk using the “burning” test. As with wool, burning silk emits bad smell, and if the source of fire is removed, the material stops burning, and the thread itself then crumbles into ash.
5. 80% of all silk produced in the world belongs to China.
6. For more than three thousand years, China kept the secret of this amazing material, and any attempt to take silkworm cocoons out of the country was punishable by death. According to legend, only in 550 AD, two wandering monks hollowed out small holes in their staffs, where they hid the silkworm larvae. This is how silk came to Byzantium.
7. In India, silk appeared thanks to the cunning of the Indian king, who wooed a Chinese princess and demanded mulberry seeds and silkworm larvae as a dowry. Unable to refuse the groom, the princess hid the seeds and larvae in her hair and took them out of the country.
8. To create just one meter of silk, an average of 2,800 to 3,300 cocoons are required, a tie requires 110, a blouse requires 650, and a silk blanket can require up to 12,000 silkworm cocoons.
9. If you unravel the threads of ten silkworm cocoons, there will be enough threads to cover Everest.
10. One of the most valuable properties of silk is thermoregulation. In hot weather, natural silk “cools”, and in winter it retains heat perfectly. At the same time, silk products absorb moisture well.