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Is It Possible To Make Silk At Home?

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    Yes it is possible to produce silk at home, but is very labour intensive and not for the faint hearted.
    In order to make silk you will have to rear silk worms from eggs (they can be bought off the internet or specialist butterfly farms, of which there are few in the UK).  You can then spin the fibres from the cocoons into silk thread.  But it takes in the region of 1400 cocoons to make 1 lb of raw silk.  
    Silkworms grow for about five weeks and in that time they need a continuous supply of food, ideally leaves of the white mulberry plant but lettuce will do, although the silk is of a lesser quality.  After this the worms begin to spin themselves cocoons.  
    After the cocoon is complete, they have to be dropped in boiling water for a few minutes, which kills the worm inside.  The cocoons are then left in hot water for a few hours, then the silk fibre is wound off the cocoon.  There are three layers of silk spun and the best silk is the middle layer.  
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    Hedgehog 

    answered 3 years ago

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