Spinning Silk Cocoons

Silk Cocoons are one of the most sought after products in the world, and led to the beginning of modern world-wide trade – seen through the development of the Silk Road which connected the East to the West. Spinning your own Silk Cocoons can prove to be a hugely rewarding experience, with the end result being a beautiful home-made Silk Product – ranging from something as illustrious as a tie to something as basic as a bookmark.

Spinning Silk Cocoons

To clean the cocoon you:

  • Trim around the emergence hole towards the end cut off the smallest amount possible – when trimming (mm).
  • Shake out the contents and then scoop them out.
  • Repeat for all cocoons.

Spinning

This recipe is for 50 cocoons (make sure you have cleaned all of the cocoons out first):

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup of soap (use biodegradable soap for the best quality silk)
  • 1 Heaped Tablespoon of bi-carb soda
  • 1.5 litres of clean water (room temperature)
  • 1 Tablespoon of Organic vinegar

Method

  1. Mix all of the ingredients except the organic vinegar in a saucepan on low temp – do not let the mixture boil.
  2. Add the cocoons (trimmed and with all of the insides removed). Make sure they are under the mix but don’t stir because this will make them all tangle.
  3. Take them out once they have begun to fluff out. Pour out the solution and rinse with water. Make sure there is no soap left.
  4. Leave them to dry for 24 hours. Put the cocoons in vinegar just enough so they’re submerged, the vinegar takes away the golden colour and makes the cocoons white.
  5. To spin, fluff out the cocoon to make whatever design you desire!
Each colour of Silk cocoon sitting on white cloth