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| Silk |
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| Wool |
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| About Dyes |
Silk
Fiber characteristics
Silk is made by unreeling the threads of a silkworm's cocoon. The silk fibers are as strong as steel of the same thickness!
Silk fabrics can be sheer (silk organza), satiny and smooth (silk charmeuse), with slubs in the weave (silk dupioni, Thai silk, Tussah silk), or slightly coarse and dull in finish (raw silk). The different textures depend on how the silk filament from the cocoon is unwound. The highest quality silk yarns, with the beautiful sheen characteristic of exquisite fabrics, comes from an unbroken strand, wound straight from the cocoon into yarn. Nubbier weaves like Thai silk and Tussah silk come from cocoons that have coarser filaments, shorter strands, and are beige or brown in color. Raw silk fabric is made from the shorter waste fibers that are left over from silk spinning. Silk dupioni comes from double cocoons (two cocoons attached to one another), which produces the characteristic nubby texture.
Silk knitting yarns also range from shiny to coarse, and silk is often used in yarn blends to add luster or texture. Amy Singer notes in No Sheep for You that silk is great for lace, because it blocks so well. Shimmery silk yarns will have a lot of drape, so choose a pattern accordingly.
Ethical approaches to silk
Bombyx Mori silkworms are hand-raised and fed a diet of mulberry leaves. These silkworms have been domesticated for over 4000 years, and cannot live in the wild. Bombyx mori silkworms produce fine, almost white-colored silk strands, which are used to create the most high-end varieties of silk textiles.
After a silkworm matures, it spins a cocoon around itself, wrapping one single filament from the outside in. At this point, in traditional sericulture, the cocoons are steamed or heated, killing the worm inside. This way the silk strand is unbroken, and can be unreeled in one single length.
Wild Silk comes from one of 500 species of wild silkworm, including Chinese Tussah, Indian Assam (Eri and Muga), and Thai Saturniidae. Wild silkworm produce a thicker and darker silk than Bombyx mori. These moths live outdoors on silk plantations, and are tended by farmers (though not requiring the care that Bombyx mori does). The cocoons are picked from the trees, often (though not always) when the moth has already emerged, resulting in shorter fibers with more color variation.
Peace Silk ("Ahimsa Silk") emphasizes the humane treatment of the silk worms that produce the lovely silk filaments. For this variety of silk, the silkworm is allowed to emerge from the cocoon naturally; only then are the cocoons unwound. Because the silkworm makes a hole in the cocoon in order to emerge, the strand is no longer unbroken, resulting in shorter fibers, so the silk is spun rather than reeled. There is often a cream or light brown coloration to peace silk as well.
Indian fashion designer Samant Chauhan is making an impact on the fashion scene with his new collections that use "nonviolent silk" made in Bhagalpur, India. His re-interpretations of what "raw silk" looks like on the runway are truly inspiring.
Whether silk is produced via traditional sericulture or following Ahimsa practices, it is a sustainable textile, and silk production is an important sector of the economy in India, China, and Thailand, among others. As with all natural fibers, how organic a silk yarn is depends on how it was processed (degummed, bleached) and what kind of dyes were used, and how the fabric was finished.
For further reading
Wormspit (many photos and details about sericulture)
Raw & Organic Silk: The Facts Behind the Fibers
