Silkworm raising and Silk production

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firecrest

Full Member
Mar 16, 2008
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uk
Cheers guys :) Toddy - do you have any tips for the spinning? I can send you some cocoons if you like.
 

Toddy

Mod
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Jan 21, 2005
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Soft hands :)
Seriously, it snags on every blooming rough edge :sigh: I have to spin wool in the grease for a week before hand since my hands are usually up to the wrists in mud or muck at least half a dozen times a day.

It's easy to spin though, it has such long fibres (might be easiest to do it 'on the fold' (have a google for a youtube video maybe ? to draft in fibres though if you don't do much spinning. That's probably the easiest way to keep it more like yarn than like thread.

Do you have a drop spindle ? or will you use a spining wheel ?

Thank you for the offer, but I think you'll need all the cocoons you have....it needs an awful lot of them to make thread....usually the lady who takes the filaments off the cocoons lightly winds 20 or so together to make the first thread...that's the first thread before it's plyed up to make nett silk thread, which is itself very fine.

Fascinating to see what you manage to get from the cocoons and what kind of fibre you end up with too :D

atb,
M
 

firecrest

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Mar 16, 2008
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ImageUploadedByTapatalk1405105093.063773.jpg Thanks toddy, I'll have a look on YouTube. I've pulled a few more out, about 50, and there's about 20 more , I've got surprisingly few cocoons considering how many silkworms I started off. Maybe I let them get too humid, I had to remove the dead ones into a carrier bag
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
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Mercia
But in a good way.

If I read one more " how to make a fire" thread I will scream :)

But this - a total breath of fresh air:)

Its so refreshing to read something original - thank you Linds!
 

firecrest

Full Member
Mar 16, 2008
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uk
Well, little update on the worms , I tried , not very successfully, to reel some silk off some cocoons that died (they stink trust me)
pyjequ9a.jpg

I placed the living cocoons neatly on paper towels, here's my whole collection, plus 'the last worm!' I've called him George. Doesn't seem to wanting to spin silk.
5y2ygu8y.jpg

But this morning, the four oldest cocoons hatched
yvadaheg.jpg

I have many many eggs is anybody wants a colony of their own. I'm going to isolate the nice yellow ones. So now the cocoons are damaged, I'm going to take the very easy route of soaking and stretching them onto a frame to make silk hankies (matawas) which can then be cast directly onto knitting needles and knitted from. I'll post a video


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Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
38,937
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S. Lanarkshire
You have to boil the cocoons for a bit to loosen the cerecin (sp?) the gum that holds the fibres together. The boiling kills the pupae, but the threads can be unreeled from the cocoons then, or the cocoons dried out in sunshine. The dried cocoons are kind of creepy....little coffins with a dried out mothy thing rattling around inside.

George is some caterpilar, but I don't much like the look of the hatched beasty :yikes:

Really good thread Lindsay :D You do have a go at the most interesting things :D

While I mind; the mawata caps make great foundations for starting felt on a mould or on your hand or foot :D
They're also used stretched out, layer upon layer, upon layer, to make silk quilts. Lovely stuff.

atb,
M
 

firecrest

Full Member
Mar 16, 2008
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uk
asagyju9.jpg

I stretched 12 hatched cocoons over a metal frame, it should be square really would have been easier. These are turning out quite small due to the cocoons being hatched and also I had a lot of very small cocoons. Still , I should get a result if some kind. It's all a learning curve. I have several hundred more eggs laid so I'm tempted to begin again!


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carabao

Forager
Oct 16, 2011
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hove
Firecrest, mad as a box of frogs but amazing to read. I have a small holding in the North East of Thailand, and there is a whole village between Udon Thani and Nong Khai that is renown in the area for its silk and it's method of farming. Because nothing goes to waste, when they boil the cocoons, the pupae then becomes feed for chickens, the chicken coops are large and raised on stilts and built over a large 40 m long pool with a depth of 1.5m, the floors are lights of bamboo pole so there is gaps in between, the chicken poop then drops into the pond becomes additional feed for the fish.
 

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