Page 69 - Homes & Antiques (February 2020)

Material Ma!ers:

SILK

This luxurious material has been revered for

thousands of years and has a colourful history
interwoven with legend and yarns…

WORDS ELLIE TENNANT ILLUSTRATIONS BECKI CLARK

From the shimmer and elegant drape form a single silk yarn, which can then be
of a curtain to the subtle sheen of a woven into fabric.
lampshade, sumptuous silk always According to the Chinese philosopher
elevates the look and feel of a room with Confucius, it was the Chinese princess
its super-so! "bres and lustrous beauty. Xi Ling Shi who "rst discovered silk in
This special material has extraordinary 2640 BC, when she was si#ing beneath
origins. Silk comes from the silkworm a mulberry tree and a silkworm cocoon
(Bombyx mori), which feeds on mulberry dropped into her cup of tea and began to
leaves until it has increased in size 10,000 unravel. Whether or not this is true, silk
times and forms a cocoon of silk, before production certainly emerged in China
pupating. The threads are then dipped in around that time and, for 3,000 years,
hot water to loosen the "laments and the Chinese kept ‘sericulture’ – silk
unwound. Each cocoon produces around production – methods a guarded secret.
900 metres of a single strand – "ve to By the third century BC, Chinese silks
eight strands are then spun together to were beginning to "nd their way

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