Thursday, January 2, 2014

SILK ANYONE?

We decided to visit the silk farm, about 15 km outside of Siem Reap and of course we took the Tuk Tuk because we love to r-r-rip! The tour was very informative (and free) and we were surprised by the whole process.  It's very complicated and requires a large amount of work to produce the smallest amount of silk.….and this is why silk is more $$$$$ than other fabrics.  I did splurge and bought a beautiful scarf (it will come in handy when I return to Canada…brrrr)!

Each moth lays hundreds of eggs which are incubated until the become silk worms

5 day old Silk Worms

2 week old Silk Worms

Cocoons  -  Placed in the sun to heat and kill the silk worm inside and then the cocoons are ready for pulling into thread

pulling silk from the cocoons…the thread forming the cocoon can be as long as 400 meters…they place them in the pot of hot water which allows the cocoon to be easy untwined.

The worms that were inside the cocoon.  Our tour guide offered us to try one…we both declined!!!.  They fry them up adding salt, spices, etc.  MMM TASTY!

preparing silk for dying a pattern - they use strands of plastic and tie them where they want for the pattern.

this is used for spinning silk into thread for weaving

weaving the silk
working with mom


Dress made from cocoons
 Our guide said "just for show, no one would wear this…well..maybe Lady GaGa"

formal silk outfits

Weaving silk!


After the Silk Farm we visited the Cambodia Landmine Museum.  We were able to see a lot of the country side as there was a fair bit of driving (which we enjoyed)!


No comments:

Post a Comment