Worming around....

There was a television show when I was a kid about a Cat that lived in the Emperors Palace in China. There was always one episode that stuck with me. The Emperor’s wife was in her garden and noticed all the pest in there; birds, worms, bees, and fish. All of them had done something to offend her. The bird woke her from her nap, the worm fell into her tea, the bee stung her, and the fish splashed her (If I am remembering this right.) In the end she banned all these creatures. As the story progressed she learned of her mistake, the birds produced an ingredient for her favorite dish bird’s nest soup, the bee made the honey for her tea, the fish ate the bugs in her garden and the worm, yes the mighty worm made her clothing. Beyond the moral of the story that everything plays a part in the world we live in it is the worm that has my attention for this blog.

Silk moth on cacoons of silk worms. The pod is what we use for silk.

That worm is in another story, again of a royal member of the Emperor’s family. The story is that in 2,640 B.C Empress Si-ling was sitting under a mulberry tree in the palace garden with a cup of tea. A small white pod fell into the tea and as the warm tea loosed the filament it began to unwind. She realized that when spun it could be woven into fine garments. She was then made the “Goddess of Silk” and Temples were built in her honor.

Silk is still processed in this way, boiled to loosen the filaments and then torn apart and spun . A female silk moth produces between 600 and 800 eggs and can lay dormant for up to 2 years. Mulberry is their preferred food source though they do like lettuce but it does lower the quality of the silk. The source of China’s silk was a closely guarded secret as well. In fact when one of the Princess of China married an Indian prince she snuck the silk worms and mulberry seeds out in her head dress. Emperors of Rome believed that the Chinese’s just combed the silk fibers out of the ground. Eventually the secret was discovered and now it is wide spread. Some spinners even spin it for fun, including yours truly.

Me preping and spinning silk.

You can buy it in two forms, the first is the pods but then sometimes as you pull them apart you come across a little body of the worm that made it. It is best to loosen the filament while the worm is inside because then you are more likely to get one long piece of silk. If you clip the end you and dump out the animal, you can some shorter fibers and some longer but if you let the moth eat its way out now you have a lot more short fibers and not a lot of long ones which will make a thicker silk yarn.

Feeding silk worms mulberry leaves in Japan.

So there you have it silk, one of the most desired and longest spun fibers of the world. In Rome it would cost the same to buy a bolt of silk as it would to buy gold. Who knew a little worm could be so useful and expensive.