What is Silk Yarn?
The 3 main types of silk yarn we have in Thailand are reeled, spun, and noil or raw silk. 1. REELED SILK YARN Reeled, or filament silk yarn is often regarded as the highest quality yarn. Only certain cocoons with a perfect shape can be used for the reeling procedure. These cocoons are soaked in warm water to soften the gummy sericin. A strand of silk from a single cocoon is too fine to use alone, so individual filaments of up to 20 cocoons are unraveled at the same time. As the sericin dries it binds the strands together to become one thread about the same thickness as human hair. Most of the reeled silks are used by large industrial looms. Heavy reeled silk yarns are also used by hand weavers but they are quite difficult to work with by hand. The thickness and twist of silk yarn are the most important factors when selecting your yarn. Reeled silk that has any kind of twist added is called thrown silk.
