Thai silk is famous for its brilliant colours and for its texture.Threads spun by silkworms are woven to make the fabric. Silk fabric is made into fine garments.

On silk farms, silkworms are kept on trays and fed leaves from mulberry bushes which are grown especially to feed them. Mulberry leaves are the only leaves the silkworms eat.

Silkworms are caterpillars, not worms.Like all caterpillars, they eat and grow. Their skin splits several times during their growing period, with a larger skin underneath being revealed.

When a silkworm is ready to become a pupa, it spins a cocoon. At this time, the silkworms are put into cane frames which they attach themselves to, and spin their cocoons. Each cocoon is made from one long, continuous thread, and that fact is the reason that the thread can be used to make fabric.
Inside the cocoon, the silkworm changes. Some are allowed to develop into moths, and they cut their way out of the cocoon. They mate and females lay eggs that will hatch into silkworms to continue production at the farm. Most of the cocoons are taken into a steam room where the pupae die inside the cocoons before they change into moths.

The cocoons are soaked in hot water to soften the sticky gum that holds the threads together. Each cocoon is brushed to find the end of the single thread. The threads of eight cocoons are unwound at the same time by reeling machines. The eight threads are twisted together to form one silk thread.

The threads are dyed.

The dyed threads are twisted (plied) together into thicker, stronger threads (left).

These thicker threads can then be woven into cloth.

Acknowledge this source in your bibliography like this:
Thailand (2001). [Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au

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updated April 2001