HARVESTING SILK

Eric writes...

So Jim, How exactly do we harvest silk from worms?

The process of harvesting silk is a simple one using the same general techniques that have been used for thousands of years. The actual techniques vary from one country to another, but those are mostly a matter of using different species of silk worms which lend themselves to using more natural methods or more mechanical methods.

The first step is to grow silk worms. Of course, silk worms are not worms at all, but caterpillars. Just like most caterpillars, at a certain stage of their lives, they build a cocoon. A silkworm spins approximately one mile of silk filament. When the cocoon is finished, it is dropped into hot, almost boiling water which kills the larvae plus melts away the "glue" that holds the cocoon together. Workers will often eat the cooked worm. The good news is it is a very good source of protein for the workers, the bad news is that is two reasons that put silk on the Vegans "do not patronize" list. (I'm not a vegan so I'm not sure why it is all right to exploit people but you shouldn't exploit other living things. But I digress...)

In any case, if you are making silk, you just find the end of the filament and spin it onto a spindle. Those threads are then respun into larger threads and woven into cloth. The other thing you can do is to take that cocoon and stretch is out forming silk batting.