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Silk has been around since ancient times and was first used by China whose people perfected the technique to manufacture it. Credit is given to HSi Ling Shih the wife of the Emperor of China around 2600 BC as the progenator of silk culture. This however is highly imporbable as remnants of silk cloth have been found which date back to 3500 BC and further. The manufacture of silk was a highly guarded secret in China for over 2 millenia with death as a penalty for those who would try to sneak the live silk worms out of China to other parts of the world. Eventually however 2 monks were successful in this venture around 500 AD by concealing silk worm cocoons inside their hollowed out staffs. They took the silk worms to Greece and the secret soon spread to most of Europe. Silk is of course the product of the silk worm and is produced in 2 varieties know as wild and cultivated. The wild variety has a brown hard coarse texture as compared to the cultivated silk which are yellow and gray in color. The silk thread when prepared for use is boiled in soap to remove the gummy substance from the fiber. This reduces the weight of the fiber and is know as pure silk which in itself is very durable. Some techniques add metal to the fiber through the use of metallic salts which make the resulting fabric heavier but less durable and prone to cracking if weighted too much. Silk fibers are long often exceeding 3500 feet in length which adds more luster to the yarns that are created in the manufacturing process. Silk of course is the finest of all non manmade fibers and produce cloths that are sheer, radiant and super lightweight. Silk also is the strongest natural fiber used for cloth but loses some of it's strength when wet but returns to it's original stregth when dry. It is very elastic far more so than cotton or linen fibers. Lingerie made out of silk keeps it's shape with little or no wrinkling. Silk's ability to absorb dyes evenly also add to it's desirability in the finest of erotic silk lingerie garments. |