Artisans Angkor
When the worms have grown enough, they are put in baskets. From there, they will spin their cocoons in five days and will produce about three hundreds meters of silk each. The cocoons are then put in sunlight to avoid them undergoing their metamorphosis into mature moths. However, 20% of them reach the breeding process and the female moths will lay and hatch its eggs within nine to twelve days.
The cocoons are soaked in hot water in order to soften the sericin (also known as silk gum) which coat the fibres and stick the cocoons together. Silk threads are then unwound and reeled together to produce a single thread. Weavers at Angkor Silk Farm make both raw silk and fine silk that do not have the same texture at all. Sericin has not been completely removed from raw silk threads, which will give a rougher texture to the fabric at the end.
Tussar silk
In order to kill the silkworms, the cocoons are dried in the sun. A variation of the process exists in which the silkworms are allowed to leave before the cocoons are soaked in boiling water to soften the silk and then reeled. Single-shelled, oval-shaped cocoons are collected and then boiled to extract the silk yarn. Boiling is a very important part in the manufacturing of silk, as it softens the cocoon and makes the extraction of silk easier. In conventional sericulture, the cocoons are boiled with the larvae still inside; however, if the cocoons are boiled after the larvae have left them, the silk made is then called "non-violent silk" or "Ahimsa silk". In China, the silks are given different names when silkworms are reared on different plants, as the diet of the silkworms has an effect on the quality of the silk. For example, silk from larvae on the wild mulberry is called "zhe", while those on the oak "Quercus dentata" produce "hu".