Silk

Silk is made from the threads of the silkworm's cocoon, which it spins itself into before pupating and emerging as a moth.
It takes the larva about 3 days to spin the cocoon, and once the cocoon is finished, it is harvested to extract the silk thread.
Around 800 meters of continuous thread can be obtained from a single cocoon.
Silk is also used to make silk fabrics, but it can also be used as a pure material, for example in yarn.

There are two types of silk:
Mulberry silk is extracted from the cocoon of the mulberry silkmoth. The moth lives in mulberry trees, where it feeds on their leaves.  This moth is the one cultivated in large greenhouses, and because breeding has been going on for so long, the moth would not be able to survive in the wild.

Tussah silk is silk thread from the tussah moth. These are the wild silkmoths. A silk thread from the tussah moth is coarser and considerably more uneven than mulberry silk.

Yarns on this page contain silk in whole or in part. Other materials may also be present.