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A very quick life - A silkworm transforms from a tiny egg weighing just half a milligram to about 10,000 times its original weight in less than six weeks.

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Long strands of saliva - When the silkworm is ready to create its cocoon, it secretes one continuous strand of saliva around itself. This hardens into a shell which protects the silkworm during its metamorphosis into a moth.

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Dizzying work - To construct the cocoon, a silkworm twists in a figure-eight motion about 300,000 times, ultimately producing about one kilometer of filament.

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Boiled or steamed - The cocoons are boiled or steamed to soften the shell and make it easier to unravel the silk thread.

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The unfortunate reality - To get a single, continuous thread that creates the sleek, smooth texture we know and love, you must boil the cocoon with the silkworm moth still inside, before it has a change to tear its way out. 

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Raw silk - The heat softens the binding agent in the cocoon, so that the filaments can be unwound. When the softened sericin is left on the thread, the product is called raw silk.

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Fine silks require many deaths - It reportedly takes the deaths of about 2,500 silkworms to make one pound of raw silk.

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Production on a huge scale - If the little silk-making critters didn't grow so quickly, it would be impossible to sustain the world's desire for silk.

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Production on a huge scale - This enormous silk mill in Pyongyang, North Korea, is just one example of how silk production has been expanded on an enormous scale.

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Many ways to handle the silk - Raw silk strands can be twisted together to create a fiber strong enough to knit or weave. Different twisting methods can also produce different types of thread, from crepe to organzine.

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If you kill the pupae, how do you supply more silk? - Billions of cocoons are necessary to supply the silk industry, some estimate about 10 billion are required each year, so the worms must be cultivated.

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Baby-making factory - Silk-making, or sericulture, begins with moths copulating and the females each laying about 300-400 eggs, shortly after which they die. 

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Incubation - The eggs are then incubated for 10 days, and they are still tiny when they hatch.

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Feasts of mulberry leaves - After just over a month of non-stop munching on mulberry leaves, the silkworm grows to about three inches, and weighs nearly 10,000 times its original weight. 

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China leads the world in silk production - In 2014, it was reported that China is responsible for about 58,000 tons each year or about 74% of the world’s supply of raw silk. Pictured is a workshop in Sihong county, Jiangsu province.

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China's silk began with women in rural villages - Silk was traditionally made by women in rural villages on a much smaller scale, but many women, like those pictured here in the rural area of Yugan, Jiangxi province, continue to work with the silkworm cocoons.

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China's silk began with women in rural villages - The traditional workmanship has largely been replaced by mass manufacturing.

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Nature’s process - In nature, the silkworm moth pokes its way out of the cocoon, which breaks the long, continuous silk strand into several shorter strands that would need to be “repaired” for silk production.

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You can make silk in a more humane way - When broken strands are woven together, the resulting threads have little nubs, and this silk is called "slubby." But contrary to what you might think, the warm and cozy fabric it produces is reportedly priced at a premium.

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Peace Silk - When the silkworm moth can emerge unharmed from its cocoon, the resulting silk has also been called Peace Silk.

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Different countries handle it in their own way - Pictured is an Afghan worker in Herat, spinning silk in a traditional workshop.

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Afghanistan - The old traditional silk processing workshops deal with the raw material in a much more intimate and scaled-down way.

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Myanmar - Pictured are Palaung women and their children collecting silkworm cocoons in Wanpaolong village in Lashio District, Myanmar.

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Rwanda - A woman spins raw silk yarn in a factory owned by a Rwandan textile firm that decided to capitalize on the country's ideal soil and climate for growing mulberry trees.

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India - A woman is at work weaving a sari in Chanderi, India. 

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Japan - Japan's Empress Michiko demonstrated her silk-making skills at the Imperial Palace, as it has long been a part of Japanese tradition.

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Not a glamorous process - Silk yarn is produced in a much less glamorous process than what one might have imagined. 

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It's mesmerizing - When you see the material like this, you would never imagine it was saliva from metamorphosing moths.

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Treated with respect -

Now you might understand the price of those handwoven silk scarves from small workshops, as they deserve the higher price! 

See also: Easy ways to buy more sustainably

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