Silk, Silk dress, Silk fabric, Silk dress, Silk scarf

Silk is a very soft and smooth material. 100 silk can be very expensive because they are taken from little worms which will take days to make silk into silk dress.

No one knows how much, if any, of the story is true. But historians do know that silk was first used in China. The Chinese guarded the secret of the silk worm. Disgrace and death faced the traitor who disclosed the origin of silk to the outside world. Only the Chinese knew how to make silk for about 3,000 years.

Traders probably began to bring silk from East Asia to Western Asia around 2000 BC. By the time of the Roman and Parthian Empires, silk was very popular in Western Asia and around the Mediterranean and a lot of silk scarf was being imported. Because it had to come from so far away, silk was very very expensive. Ordinary people could not afford to wear silk. But everyone wanted to wear silk. It was very pretty, smooth and shiny and soft, and comfortable to wear. Also it was cooler in the summertime than wool or linen.

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History of silk
Silk manufacture or Sericulture, as it is technically called, originated in China. However, silk was an unknown thing for the West for a very long time. Roman historian Pliny wrote in 70th BC that silk was produced “…by removing the down from the leaves with the help of water…” – a clear indication about the ignorance about silk in the West.

Perhaps this secret is one of the safest guarded ones in the history of civilization.
According to the Chinese legend, queen Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the mythical Yellow Emperor started the idea of silkworm rearing and the loom. Legend says that the Yellow Emperor reined the country in 3000 BC; so China can claim of silk rearing from that period. However, studies conducted that it originated much earlier.
Since silk began with the Royal family, evidently for a long period of time, its use was restricted to the King and his family. It is said that the king wore a white silk robe inside the palace and a yellow one outside the premises.

Much later, it reached out to the various sections of the society. Its use was initially meant for clothing and decoration and later on for industrial purposes that included fishing lines, musical instruments, and various kinds of bonds, bowstrings and rag paper. In due course of time, this fabric became accessible even to the common man and silk clothing gained popularity.

How is silk made?
Silk production is a tedious and lengthy process that requires continuous supervising of the smallest of the details. To ensure the quality of silk, it is important to consider two conditions - prevent the moth from hatching out and setting the perfect the diet on which the silkworms should feed.

The hatching of the eggs occurs at 77 degrees; the baby silk worms gorge on the mulberry leaves and becomes almost 10,000 times their weight within one month. This feeding happens unless they have built up enough energy to enter the ‘cocoon stage’. During this period, a jelly like substance is formed in their silk glands which harden on contact with air. These cocoons look like white puffy balls. After eight to nine days, these silk worms are killed, by steaming or baking. When these cocoons are dropped into hot water, they become loose and open out into filaments which are unwound into a spool. Each filament is between 600 and 900 meters long. To get one silk thread, approximately five to eight filaments are twisted together; these silk threads are then woven into cloth or used for embroidery work.

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