It is not for nothing that silk is called the “king of fabrics”, because this canvas is very beautiful, has many advantages and can be used both in the production of clothes and accessories, as well as in interior decoration. What is silk made of and how difficult is it? Read the article below.
A bit of history
The production of this amazing fabric originated in ancient China, and the world did not know the secret of its manufacture for a very long time. A man who decided to reveal this secret was threatened with the death penalty. Therefore, the price of the fabric was appropriate, few people could afford to buy. In the Roman Empire, silk was worth its weight in gold! When did the Chinese learn to use silkworm threads to make thin cloth? No historian will give you an exact date. There is a legend that once a cocoon of a caterpillar fell into the Empress’s tea and turned into a thread of amazing beauty. Then the wife of the Yellow Emperor and began to breed silkworm caterpillars.
Only in 550 BC e. Byzantine Emperor Justinian managed to reveal the secret - what silk is made of. Two monks were sent to China with a secret mission. Returning two years later, they brought silkworm eggs with them. The monopoly has come to an end.
About Silkworm Caterpillars
Natural silk fabric today, as in ancient times, can be made only with the help of the best caterpillars. There are a great many butterflies in the silkworm family, but only caterpillars called Bombyx mori can give the most expensive thread. This species does not exist in the wild, as it is created and cultivated artificially. They were bred for the sole purpose of laying eggs for growing silk-producing caterpillars.
They fly very poorly and see almost nothing, but they cope with the main task perfectly. Caterpillars live for several days, but manage to find a partner and lay up to 500 eggs. On about the tenth day, caterpillars emerge from the eggs. It takes about 6 thousand caterpillars to produce a kilogram of silk.
How do caterpillars produce silk thread?
What silk is made of, we have already figured out, but how does this happen? How does a caterpillar produce such a precious thread? The fact is that hatched creatures eat round the clock leaves of the mulberry tree on which they live. In two weeks of life, they grow 70 times and molt several times. Having eaten a lot, silkworms are ready for the production of thread. The body becomes translucent, and the caterpillars crawl in search of a place to develop the thread. At this point, they need to be placed in special boxes with cells. There, silkworms begin an important process - they make cocoons.
Digested leaves turn into fibroin, which accumulates in the glands of the caterpillar. Over time, the protein turns into a substance called sericin. In the mouth of creatures is a spinning organ, at the exit of it two strands of fibroin are glued together with sericin. It turns out one strong silk thread, which freezes in the air.
One caterpillar can twist in two days a thread more than a thousand kilometers long. For the production of one silk scarf, more than a hundred cocoons are required, and for a traditional kimono - 9 thousand!
Silk technology
When the cocoon is ready, it must be unwound (this is called cocoon winding). To begin with, cocoons are collected and subjected to heat treatment. After that, low-quality threads are thrown away. The remaining strands are steamed in hot water to moisturize and soften. Then special brushes find the end, and the machine connects two or more threads (depending on the desired thickness). The raw material is rewound, so it dries.
Why is the fabric so smooth? The fact is that according to special technology, the entire syrocin is removed from it. In a soapy solution, silk is boiled for several hours. The cheaper, untreated fabric is coarse and difficult to dye. That is why chiffon is not so smooth.
Silk dyeing
The long journey of fabric production is not yet over, although it is nearing completion. After boiling the silk, another important stage is ahead - dyeing. Smooth threads are easy to dye. The structure of fibroin allows the paint to penetrate deep into the fiber. Therefore, silk scarves retain their color for so long. The canvas contains positive and negative ions, which allows you to use any paint and get a good result. They dye silk in skeins and already finished fabric.
To obtain a more shiny fabric and its saturated color, silk is “revived”, that is, it is treated with vinegar essence. At the end of the path, the canvas is again poured with hot steam under pressure. This allows you to remove the internal stress of the fibers. The process is called decanting.
Now you know what silk is made of and what a long way it is. It is mainly produced in China and India, but the legislators of "silk fashion" are France and Italy. Currently, there are many synthetic fabrics resembling silk, but at a much lower price (viscose, nylon). However, no fabric can compete with natural silk!