Question

4. Answer the following questions in 60-80 words:
a) Describe the process of making silk.​

Answer 1

Answer:

The process of silk production is known as sericulture. ... Extracting raw silk starts by cultivating the silkworms on mulberry leaves. Once the worms start pupating in their cocoons, these are dissolved in boiling water in order for individual long fibres to be extracted and fed into the spinning reel.

Answer 2

Explanation:

Step 1 . Raising Step 1. Raising silkworms & harvesting cocoons to make silk threads

Raising-silkworms

Silk comes from the larvae (or caterpillars) of the silkmoth. Female silkmoths lay around 300 to 500 eggs at a time. These eggs are incubated until they hatch and caterpillars emerge.

The caterpillars then spend around six weeks fattening up on a diet of mulberry leaves before spinning their cocoons.

It takes a silkworm between 3 and 8 days to create their cocoon, which is formed from one single strand of silk. This strand measures an incredible 100 meters long and it’s held together in its cocoon shape by a natural gum called sericin.

Step 2. Extracting the silk threads

Silk-thread-extraction

In order to unravel the silk thread, cocoons are placed into boiling water. This softens the sericin so the strand of silk can be reeled and wound.

Once all natural gum has been removed, threads are bleached and dried.

Step 3: Dyeing.

Next, it’s time to dye the silk. Traditional silk dyeing (the dyeing that takes place at this Thai village) uses dyes taken from nature.

Threads are soaked together in a pot of hot water and — depending on the desired color — a variety of different fruits and plant leaves.

By repeating the process a number of times over a number of days, the silk takes on the right color tone and quality.

Step 4: Spinning.

Spinning-silk

Now dyed and dry, the silk threads are spun together ready for weaving.

Step 5. Ikat (another kind of dyeing)

Ikat

When designers want to make silk with lots of patterns, ikat (a traditional form of tie-dyeing) is the next step in the process.

Individual yarns (or groups of yarn) are bound together and then dyed. This process takes place before weaving. And is sometimes repeated many times to create wonderfully complex, multicolored patterns.

Step 6. Weaving

Weaving-silk

During the last stage of the silk making process, the final product takes shape. Skilled weavers use a variety of different weaving styles to create beautiful silk items with luxurious textures.