austermann kid silk yarn and how yarn is made
The Austermann kid silk yarn is a collection of yarns and in this article, how this yarn is made will be discussed. This collection comes in an extremely extensive color palette and can be used for a wide variety of projects.
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Many of them are available in forty different shades, with some bright self-striping yarns included.
Excellent for truly personalizing the knitted and crocheted items you create!
The Origin and Development of Silk Yarn, As Well As Instructions on How to Use Silk Yarn
Unraveling a cocoon, which is the metamorphosis chamber of the silkworm, results in the production of silk threads and fibers.
In the warm temperatures of spring, the egg of the Bombyx mori caterpillar, which is about the size of a poppy seed, will hatch.
The silkworm will have grown to the size of a whole piece of writing chalk after 30 days of continuously feeding on mulberry leaves, and the mulberry leaves will have been turned into a semi-liquid protein called fibroin.
When the biological time clock of the silkworm sends the signal to begin the process of cocoon spinning, the fibroin travels to the spinneret, which is an aperture located in the head of the worm.
In addition to that, it has a second gummy protein called sericin that coats it.
Silk is produced by the silkworm by rotating its body 200,000 times in three days, which causes a single continuous strand of silk to be extruded by the spinneret.
This thread is long enough to span 12 football fields.
The cocoon is formed when the silk binds to itself, creating the structure.
Farmers from all over Asia can be seen carrying baskets and sacks piled high with 'green' cocoons as they make their way to local markets.
Here, purchasers compete aggressively for the harvests.
The cocoon is considered to be in the "green" state until the developing pupa that is contained within it is choked in order to prevent the pupa from developing into a moth.
Within the time frame of the metamorphosis, which lasts for about two weeks, cocoons need to be gathered, transported, sold, and stifled.
If the pupa is allowed to develop to its full potential, the emerging moth will produce a brown fluid that will degrade the silk and create a hole through which it can escape.
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This will result in the fiber being broken into short pieces that are unable to be reeled.
Unraveling cocoons can be done in a factory, in a cottage industry, or by a person, although all three use the same fundamental concepts.
After removing the silk from its cocoons and spinning it into yarn, there are three distinct types of yarn produced: reeled, spun, and noil.
Reeled Yarn
The best grade yarn is reeled silk, often known as filament silk.
It is exceedingly bright white in color.
First, the cocoons are examined and separated according to their shape, as the reeling process can only make use of cocoons that are unblemished in appearance.
Warm water is used to soak cocoons in order to soften the sticky sericin inside.
Because the strand of silk that comes from a single cocoon is too fine to be used by itself, individual filaments from six to twenty cocoons are unraveled at the same time while passing through an extremely narrow eye.
The strands are brought together to form a single thread about the diameter of a human hair by the drying and hardening of the liquefied sericin.
The vast bulk of reeled silks are sold to large industrial loom manufacturers.
Tips for Handling
Handweavers have just recently gained access to relatively heavy reeled silk threads.
This development occurred only within the past few years.
They are quite difficult to handle without employing some specific strategies due to their extraordinary slipperiness.
When working with looped silk yarn, a ball winder is not the appropriate tool to use.
The silk yarn is going to come loose, which will result in a tangled mess.
You can wind the silk yarn balls by hand, or even better, you can wind your warp and shuttle right from the skein, which should be placed on a yarn holder (swift).
silk yarn for weaving
When clamping the swift, it is preferable to do so on an angle rather than vertically.
Regardless of the type of silk yarn you are working with, you can save time and avoid tangles by purchasing a few swifts and skipping the stage of winding the yarn into a ball.
Yarn Count
The denier is the unit of measurement that is used to determine the diameter of a strand of silk, and the count of reeled silk yarns is based on the denier.
One denier, or 1 D, is equal to one gram of weight, which is equal to nine thousand meters of filament.
In imperial measurement terms, this equates to 1D being equal to 9,750 yards (or little over 5 miles) of silk thread with a weight of 1/28 of an ounce.
A strand of silk extracted from a typical cocoon has a density of 2-3 deniers and is nearly undetectable to the naked eye.
A D 20/22 yarn is made up of filaments that come from eight different cocoons, and each filament can be as thick as a human hair.
The count numbers that describe reeled yarns are complicated technicalities that are only somewhat interesting.
When beginning a project, the things that are truly crucial to consider are the thickness as well as the twist.
Examining a swatch of the yarn and noting the yardage it contains is the most effective method for determining whether or not it is appropriate for the tasks at hand.
These considerations will play a role in determining both the set and the hand.
Thrown silk is reeled silk that has had some form of twist added to it after it was reeled.
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The warp is made of organzine, which is given a very tight twist and then plied, and the weft is made of tram, which is given only a very tiny twist and is utilized.
Tips For Handling
Although it is trickier to work with than cotton or wool, high-quality spun silk yarn is not difficult to manipulate at all.
If the silk strands come loose from the ball while you are wrapping them onto the ball, you can keep them organized by placing an empty toilet paper tube on the arm of the ball winder.
In order to avoid fluffing and pilling the silk yarn, as little as possible handling of the loom should be done while it is being dressed.
Yarn Count
The metric count system is utilized for counting spun silk yarn.
This system is also utilized for counting cotton, linen, and wool.
The consistent figure for measuring spun silk yarn is 1 gram, which is equal to 1/28 of an ounce.
A yarn with a count of one has a weight of one gram per meter, which is equivalent to 39 inches.
The quantity of meters per gram of a #10 silk is ten, and there are ten thousand meters every kilogram.
This equates to 4,970 yards per pound of force.
Plied yarns can be classified by their size using a pair of numbers.
A spun silk with the designation 20/2 is made up of two strands (bottom number) of a yarn with the designation 20 (top number).
The number 20 denotes that each strand is twenty times finer than a #1 silk, which has a yardage to weight ratio of 497.
Multiplying the yarn size by 497 and then dividing that result by the number of plies in the yarn will give you the yardage for the spun silk yarn.
A 20/2 silk has 4970 yd/lb.
When the number increases (such as 20, 30, or 60), the yarn becomes thinner, but the yardage remains the same.
How is silk made
Silk is a protein fiber that is made from the saliva of silkworms, which is a little insect that is officially known as the Bombyx mori moth.
How it is made is discussed below.
Cotton and hemp, on the other hand, are both made from plant fibers.
In the early stages of its lifecycle, a silkworm is able to make a cocoon for itself by spinning a continuous thread of silk from spinnerets on its head.
This cocoon serves as a protective covering for the silkworm while it transforms into a moth.
Sericulture refers to the practice of extracting cocoons for the purpose of obtaining silk; this practice has been around for thousands of years.
The farmers essentially create an artificial environment in which the moths may deposit their eggs on specialized paper, where the eggs will eventually hatch into larvae and feed the crop.
After that, they are given a diet consisting solely of mulberry leaves, and after around 35 days of developing and multiplying in size, they are prepared to build their cocoon.
Once the silkworms have finished spinning their cocoons, the next step in the process of cultivating silk involves either heating or boiling the silkworms to death.
This procedure of boiling also blunts a natural chemical compound known as sericin, which, if not neutralized, would cause the cocoons to stiffen, resulting in fabric that is not as soft as it otherwise would be.
The next step is called reeling, and it consists of unspooling the cocoons so that they make one long, continuous string that can be several hundred yards in length.
After that, multiple long strands of silk are intertwined together to make silk thread.
At some point in time, that silk thread will be fashioned into a cloth that will be used for commercial purposes.
In order to keep up with the demand for silk, this process of collecting the eggs, growing silkworms, and then killing them while they are still within their cocoons occurs nonstop.
Domesticated Bombyx mori moths have atrophied wings and have lost the ability to fly as a result of selective breeding.
Because of this, silk farming practices have come under scrutiny in recent years, and as a result, animal rights organizations like PETA have advocated for a total ban on the use of silk.
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According to some calculations, the slaughter of around 2,000 to 3,000 silkworms is necessary in order to produce one pound of silk.
Cruelty-Free Silk?
After the collection of the cocoons, the silkworms are boiled and consumed as food in some nations that produce silk, such as China.
Although eating silkworms results in less biowaste and gives some nutritional value, very few of the silkworms that are raised for the textile industry are ever consumed.
On the other hand, due to the growing desire for sustainable foods based on animal products on a worldwide scale, eating insects might become more prevalent at some point in the future.
In addition to that, there is an other method of harvesting silk that does not involve injuring or killing silkworms.
Ahimsa silk is the product that can be obtained through the use of this technique, which was developed in India.
There are a few other names for it, including ethical silk, peace silk, and cruelty-free silk.
The harvesting of ahimsa silk does not involve the killing of the worms, despite the fact that the production of ahimsa silk involves many of the traditional practices associated with sericulture.
Instead, the cocoons are either left intact and the worms are allowed to emerge from them as adults, or they are opened up and the pupae are removed.
If the eggs are not removed, the pupae will remain in the cocoon for an additional seven to ten days, during which time it will begin to stiffen.
This typically leads to a decrease in silk yield as well as threads that are broken into many strands, which results in a fabric that is more uneven.
Ahimsa silk, on the other hand, is typically more expensive than conventionally cultivated silk due to the increased difficulty involved in its cultivation.
In spite of this, it is gaining popularity and is increasingly being considered a viable option in the fashion business.
Our company is prepared to provide silk cocoons, silk fabric and silk thread to customers and business owners around the globe.
We have built trust with our customers by providing the best quality products we have to offer.
Therefore, our cooperation has lasted for a long time.
If you would like to gain more information about our products, do not hesitate to contact our consultants who are available 24/7 to answer all your questions.
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