Silk - China to India.[ Video Silk Project on Music ]
Silk another word for Softness.
Silk might have come from China to INDIA,but it actually comes from a worm.THE SILK WORM.The worm does not give silk but it makes silk filament a silk yarn so long as 300 to 900 meters long and is 1/2500 of an inch.
However this length and the quality will be obtained by killing the worm in boiling water and taking out the filament to be joined by a minimum of 24 of such filaments from 24 cocoons and winding it on to a suitable form which can than be twisted to give a fine yarn.This is a highly skilled operation and cannot be made fully automatic like other natural fibers like cotton or wool so far as fashion fabrics are concerned.
Once the yarn is twisted on twisting machines the process of pre weaving preparations are carried out.
1 ) The Silk twisted filament yarn on spools are arranged as per the fabric engineering calculations and more than 350 spools are creeled in a machine called as a Warper Machines.The Warper Machine is of two types the regular Warper as in Cotton with slight variations and the other machine called as Sectional Warper Machine are used to carry out this process of converting 350 or more single yarn in to a sheet of 350 or more yarns which is wound on to a roll called as Warper Beams.In case of sectional warper it is in a rope form which is spread out after being wound on to the Warper Beam to the length required may be from 60 to 600 meters depending on the Weaving Machine that is used to make the fabric.
2 ) The Warper Beams numbering from 8 to 12 or more than goes to Sizing Machine.Here the sheet from 6 or 12 Beams or more are made to roll out the sheet of Silk Yarn from Warper Beams to a single Beam called as Drawers Beam via a boiling liquid of Size Mix to give strength to the sheet of yarn having 2500 to 3500 yards of Silk Thread this number is again, depends on the fabric engineering design.
3 ) The Drawer Beams than gets mounted on a Stand and each thread of Silk Yarn is drawn through a Heald,this is a Strong Thread with a hole in the middle the location is fixed and is as many as the number of Silk threads.After each yarn is drawn through this eyelet it is again drawn through a Sheet of flat fine wire in a frame called as the Reed and when both the passages are completed the yarn is held in a fixed position and all such threads are than when drawn are tied to avoid the threads from going back.This set of Beams with Heald and Reed with Silk thread is now ready to be woven on the machine or on Peddle looms called Hand looms.
The type of weaing is as per requirement and there are so many types such as:-
1) Plain Woven.
2) Dobby Woven - Cheques.
3) Jacquard Woven - Complicated Weaving.
4) Crepe Woven
5) Georgetta Woven.
6) Stripe Woven.
7) Taffeta Woven.
8) Satin Woven
9) Rib Woven
The Weaving is on Hand Looms or Power Looms and weaving is highly skilled in case of Hand Looms and highly technical in case of Power Looms.The Woven Cloth is than processes by Hand or by special machines which are built to take only silk Fabric.
Silk route from China to India.
Silk came to India by road as seen in the map below.A few merchants from India who went to China carried the silk worms after learning the technique of making silk.The place where it was all Started was in Kashmir and even to this present day Kashmir Silk has it's own charm with regards to it's texture,design and colors.The traders of 5th century are to be remembered today as silk in today's fashion garments occupies a major natural fabric that is not only beautiful in it's natural feeling but in it's drape to body shape.This fashion fabric of 5th century is perhaps has given so many people their lively-hood but has been a topic of research and innovation in textiles.Silk also is a natural technical textiles subject and spider silk has been evolved in research in technical textiles.Silk is a Royal Fabric in India.The technique of silk weaving has changed and hence the production of silk has increased so that it reaches the common man.The Govt of India has not shown the importance of Silk to the extent that India is the second largest producer of Silk next to China and in the past 50 years if the rulers of India had shown some interest India perhaps could have over taken China today. China produced silk and kept it as a secret from being hijacked to any other country as they has other goods that they produced which were also a secret and unknown to any other country.We can presume from the construction of the " Great Wall Of China " which perhaps was constructed to keep it's secret.
Silk route.
2nd Century Silk Fabric from a Tomb in China.
