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.
Assam silk
Muga silk is the product of the silkworm "Antheraea assamensis" endemic to Assam. The larvae of these moths feed on som ("Machilus bombycina") and sualu ("Litsaea polyantha") leaves. The silk produced is known for its glossy, fine texture and durability. It was previously reported that muga silk cannot be dyed or bleached due to "low porosity", but this is incorrect; muga takes dye like any other silk. This silk can be hand washed with its lustre increasing after every wash. Very often the silk outlives its owner.
In 2015, Adarsh Gupta K of Nagaraju's research team at Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, India, discovered the complete sequence and the protein structure of muga silk fibroin and published it in "Nature" Scientific Reports