Sericulture is the art of raising the silk worm and harvesting its cocoon. The process of silk production is labor intensive. The sericulturist cultivates the worms through a careful selection of the best leaves and monitoring precise environmental, temperature and humidity levels. Like other successful manufacturing industries in China, such as lacquer and porcelain, the large-scale production of fine silks results in part from a combination of the availability of raw materials and the organization of labor and working processes. The principal stages are the cultivation of mulberry trees and bushes; rearing the silkworms, retrieving the silk from their cocoons, stretching and layering the cocoons, and then sewing a protective casing and details to form a silk comforter.
The production of silk does not absolutely require the mulberry leaf, but its superiority as a food for silkworms is evident in the higher quality silk produced. The mulberry tree does not flourish in every climate, and the suitability of the Yangzi River area accounts for some of the region's success as a silk producer. There are numerous varieties, and the best for producing fine, white silk is white mulberry. Silkworms consume a prodigious quantity of mulberry leaves, which have to be in constant fresh supply. Leaves need to be clean and dry, and the best way of rearing the silkworms is on large flat trays where both leaf and worm can be spread out in a dry, ventilated environment.
After about a month, the silkworm has finished eating, and it encases itself in a cocoon of silk, held together with a natural glue-like substance called sericin. The complicated process of obtaining the silk then begins. First the cocoons are sorted by quality, color and size, then soaked in warm water to dissolve the sericin. From this point, the silk fibers are either reeled and dyed to create the wide range of silk fabrics currently available, or stretched and layered to create silk comforters. In this process, the silk cocoons are stretched over U-shaped brackets to form what will eventually become one of hundreds of layers of silk floss. Each of these U-shaped pieces of stretched silk are washed several times and re-stretched. After thorough cleaning and stretching, the silk pieces are hung to dry in the partial sun, and re-stretched on the U-brackets for further softening and cleaning by hand. Each piece is then hand stretched into a square shape, which is then stretched to the size of an entire comforter. It is then finished by sewing and encasing these hundreds of layers of silk floss into a silk or cotton casing to form a silk comforter.
Sources:
http://www.rdricketts.com/worm.html
http://www.silkmerchant.com/about_silk.html
http://www.liverpool.k12.ny.us
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