Silk fabric
Silk fabric is soft and fine. Threads spun by silkmoths is woven
to make the fabric. Silk fabric is made into fine garments.
Growing silkworms
Silkworms are caterpillars, not worms.
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 spin cocoons
When
the silkworms are ready to spin their cocoons, they are put into
cane frames. They attach themselves to the cane 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.
Getting the silk
Inside the cocoon, the silkworm changes into a pupa. Some of them
are allowed to develop into moths, and 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.
Processing the
silk threads
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 and then woven into cloth.
Acknowledge
this source in your bibliography like this:
A Trip to Indonesia (2001).
[Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au
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updated 4 February, 2001