Wild Fibres natural fibres
Silk

               Wild Fibres - Natural fibres for spinning & felting

 

Change text size?

Wild Fibres 

 

Educational fibre packs

Fibre discovery packs for schools, colleges & fibre enthusiasts

We also sell natural dyes, extracts & mordants

Wild Colours natural dyes, extracts & mordants

& handmade paper for printing, artists & gift wrap

Wild Paper handmade paper for printing, artists & gift wrap

 

 

Wild Fibres natural fibres > Silk fibre, silkmoths & silkworms

Silk, Silkworms, Silkmoths & Spiders

What is silk? | Wild Fibres natural fibres

Why use Silk? 9 reasons to use silk | Wild Fibres natural fibres

Silkworms, silk cocoons & silkmoths | Wild Fibres natural fibres

What is silk?

9 Reasons to use Silk

Silkworms, cocoons & moths

Mulberry Silk | Wild Fibres natural fibres

Tussah silk & wild silks | Wild Fibres natural fibres

History of silk & the Silk Route | Wild Fibres natural fibres

Mulberry Silk

Tussah silk & wild silks

Silk history

  1. What is Silk?
     

    Buy silk fibre for spinning here | Wild Fibres natural fibres

    silk for spinning
    Buy silk cocoons & silk fibre here

  2. Why buy Silk? - 9 reasons to buy silk (opens a new page)
     
  3. Silkworms, Silk cocoons & Silkmoths (open new pages)
     
  4. Mulberry Silk (opens a new page)
     
  5. Tussah Silk, Wild Silk & Spider Silk & Golden Orb Spiders (open new pages)
     
  6. History of Silk (coming soon)
     
  7. Silkworm & Silkmoth photos (opens a new page)
     

What is silk?

Buy silk cocoons & silk fibre here | Wild Fibres natural fibres

silk cocoons
Buy silk cocoons & silk fibre here


Silk is a very special natural fibre. It is lustrous, and smooth, drapes well and is very strong. Silk takes dyes very well and can be made in brilliant colours. Silk is important historically and has been in use for at least 5,500 years.

Most commercial silk is mulberry silk, which is also known as cultivated silk or bombyx silk. Mulberry silk is white, 10 to 14 microns in diameter and round in cross-section. This type of silk is produced from cocoons of the mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori), a caterpillar that eats mulberry leaves.

Read more about Mulberry silk here.

Wool and silk differ in both origin and structure. Wool and hair are formed of the protein ‘keratin’ and grow either continuously or seasonally from the outer skin layer or dermis of mammals, such as sheep and goats. Silk is ‘fibroin’, a protein that is produced on demand from special silk glands of several groups of invertebrate animals, including silk moths, and is extruded as a liquid through openings called spinnerets in a process similar to the production of rayon. Spiders use this silk to spin a spider’s web, and silkworms spin a protective cocoon for the vulnerable pupa stage.

Silk is produced by many insects and by spiders but most commercial silk comes from the caterpillars (larvae or silkworms) of silk moths of the superfamily Bombycoidea. Several different groups of silk moths are used to produce wild silk but cultivated silk from larvae of the Mulberry Silkworm moth, Bombyx mori, accounts for most commercial production. Bombyx mori appears to be descended from the wild silk moth Bombyx mandarina which is very widely distributed in China and Japan, also feeds on mulberry (of which it is considered a pest) and which crosses readily with Bombyx mori (Aruga, 1994).

The female silk moth is short-lived and produces about 500 eggs in 4-5 days before dying. Like almost all members of this group, it has no proboscis and does not feed. The larva, however, feeds voraciously on mulberry leaves, before reaching full size in about 35 days in optimum conditions of temperature and food quality. It then spins a silk cocoon so that it is protected whilst changing into the immobile pupa stage and then develops into an adult moth inside the pupa.

The silk is produced as a thick sticky liquid through the openings of two spinnerets under the mouth and solidifies in the air to form twin filaments of silk that become glued together into a single thread with sericin. Up to 1,300 metres of this silk fibre may be produced in a three day period.

Read more about Silkworms, silk cocoons and Silk moths here.


Top of Page
 

Teresinha at Wild Fibres
Studio I-319, Scott House, The Custard Factory
Gibb Street, Birmingham B9 4DT, UK

Contact Teresinha for enquiries on
Tel:  +44 (0)7979 770865
email: info@wildfibres.co.uk

[Natural Fibres] [Fibre Resources] [Fibre Info] [Policies] [Links]


Delivery charges in the UK

Delivery in Europe & rest of World here

Last updated on 25 July 2019
Website and photos by Mike Roberts © 2008-19 Wild Fibres