Useful facts about silk
People who want information about silk are either interested in how it is formed, produced and processed or would like to know how to care for silk. Therefore we have compiled this guide with various useful tips and interesting facts about this most exclusive of all natural fibres.
Worth knowing about Silk
When you run that fine silk scarf through your fingers or plump up the brocade cushion on your sofa, it feels so soft and beautiful. As you stroke the fabric, you are probably not thinking about the silkworm which consumed 40,000 times its weight in mulberry leaves to make it. Nor are you likely to be thinking of a caterpillar which managed to spin 15 metres per minute in order to produce a cocoon around itself four weeks later, consisting of one single thread – a thread up to 4,000 metres long. This silk is called filament silk. So it is not surprising that about 10 kilogrammes of cocoons are required for one kilogramme of raw silk. Incidentally, wild silk is only the silk obtained from the cocoons from which the caterpillars have already hatched.
You can find out more about the exclusivity of silk in our story.