Silk Cocoons

Yarn comes from "Silk Cocoons"

Yarns, which produce wondrous silk fabrics, come from the fine web naturally, produced by silk larvae in which they wrap themselves and which are called “Silk Cocoon”.

The cocoons are part of the life cycle of a variety of moth belonging to the Bombycidae family in order of Lepidoptera, which has been domesticated and raised to produce yarn,Its scientific name is Bombyx Mori.
A silkworm moth is usually grayish white color and has two twin wings. It has a marking that looks like a mouth although in fact it has a proboscis. A female is usually larger than male, neither can fly far. Their flights seem more like clumsy jumping, ending up with a sudden fall. Silkworm moths are short lived, mating and laying eggs and dying in only a few days.

 A female Bombyx Mori after mating is capable of laying between 250 and 500 eggs, the number of eggs varied with each specific breed of the moths.

 Bombyx Mori egg hatches into hungry tiny silkworms, that feeds on finely sliced mulberry leaves for 3 or 4 days before shedding its first mould. The enlarged silkworm lies stretched in hibernation for a day and a night, it then wakes up and continues feeding.

   After a few days the process is repeated, but now in it is no longer necessary to slice the mulberry leaves. Yet again the process is repeated and the silkworm is now in its fourth stage of rapid growth, which lasts for 3 or 4 days.
   Finally, in the fifth stage, which lasts for 7 or 8 days, the worm is eating vigorously, becoming fat and full-grown. It is now some 10,000 times as heavy as when it was hatched. The adult silkworm has a gland, which produces enzyme that turns the whole body yellow - hence the color “ ripe – silk ”. In this last stage it stops eating, its body shrinks and becomes clearer in color. It raises and sways its head looking for a suitable nesting place.
   The fully developed silkworms are now transferred to bamboo tray where they settles down and starts to discharge the fine filament that enmeshes their bodies into a cocoon from which we derive our heavenly silk fabrics.