Silk and Worms: How are they connected? - By Simi And Mom

In Siem Reap, we were able to visit a silk farm. I did not know how silk was made before I went there. The silk farm was part of Artisans Angkor. This sells beautiful things for people to buy and gives a lot of people from the area jobs. How do people make these beautiful fabrics?

The inside of Artisans Angkor

First, the larvae eat mulberry tree leaves. They grow the leaves in trees outside of the farm. They eat the leaves for 25 days until they are fully grown.

When they are grown, they are bigger than the larvae and are a shiny white. They spin their silk into cocoons. The farm uses different materials to hold up the cocoons. Then they are moved to a circle kind of structure that holds the cocoons up. The sun dries the cocoons and the worms die. Only 20% go onto become moths and are used to mate to make new moths to start the cycle over.

The cocoons, now without the worms, are taken and the silk of the cocoon is separated from the center husk. This is all done by people and cant be done by machines well. There are two kinds of silk that are unspun--raw which is a little rougher (in the first picture) and fine silk. Both are rough though and they are boiled and dyed (see below picture) which makes the silk softer and more colorful.

Before, they used many different natural materials, such as quinine, to dye the silk. But now most of the dye is chemicals.

In the last stages of the process, women at the silk farm weave the silk into many different designs using the machines you can see above. I wondered why it was only women doing this work? But they did a wonderful job and the fabric was so pretty and had so many colors and designs.

After looking around, my dad bought the one above that is hanging for our living room. Come over to see it! It is real silk!