No. 1 Silk Factory

This past weekend was cold and rainy so we were on the hunt for things to do indoors. Saturday afternoon we went to the No. 1 Silk Factory. I think that factory tours can be so interesting and this is a great one! I know I will add it to my "tour guide repertoire." So if you come to visit us, I just might take you there. :-)  Anyway, the factory shows how silk is made starting with the silkworms and ending (not surprisingly) in a store where you can buy silk items. The process was fascinating. Did you know that a silkworm's cocoon is one single thread that stretches a mile? How crazy is that? Some cocoons have 2 silkworms. These can't be used to make silk threads because the two strands become tangled, so they are used as filling for silk comforters (which are supposedly super-warm). 

A worker sorting the cocoons by whether they have a double or a single worm.

The cocoons are steamed and then soaked in water to loosen the threads. This woman is finding the start of the single strand of the cocoon. Then she threads it through this machine that unwinds the cocoon. Each one of these wheels is unwinding a single cocoon.

My engineer (Andy) was fascinated by this machine. It is a mechanical loom that is weaving a piece of silk. Can you see the elaborate punch cards that tell the loom what pattern to weave? I think that Andy could have stood here for an hour. 

This women is opening up the cocoons that have 2 silkworms. She then stretches the whole cocoon over the metal loop you see on her workbench. After there are a number of cocoons, they are left to dry and then....

4 workers stretch to make it the size of a quilt. How many of these layers a quilt has determines the quality.

The kids and I taking a turn. Notice how ours is much smaller than theirs?

The girls touching a (dead) silkworm that was removed from a cocoon.