Silk Spinning

– Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Armenia

Armenia, started by importing silk from China, but eventually had their own sericulture.[1]

Sericulture has been an industry in Azerbaijan since the 7th century.[2] Azerbaijan was known for its silk fabrics, as they were the basis of brocades, darai, diba and zarbaft.[3]

Bangladesh made more than 50% of textiles of the Indian subcontinent and around 40% of silks imported by the Dutch from Asia.[4]

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Bhutan

Bhutanese do not kill the silkworm before it escapes the cocoon, so it is not a single, smooth thread.[5] This is why the silk from Bhutan is not as smooth as the silk from India or China.[6]

In Brunei, silk fabrics are produced for household goods and women’s clothing, just not for men’s clothing, and men are considered to be the largest consumers in Brunei.[7] Songket is popular in Brunei, where the fabric is intricately woven with patterns and then inlaid with silver and gold threads.[8] Brunei does not spin all the thread it uses for the weaving that it does, nor has it done so historically.[9]

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Cambodia

The silk produced in Cambodia is a saffron-yellow color by nature (not the typical silk white) because of the breed of silkworm that grows best there.[10] Silk fibers are especially common as they are used in the ikat weaving Cambodia is known for, and was made popular by the Angkor Dynasty.[11]

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China

Based on their technology and exports, silk was the primary driving fiber in China. Discovered in 2640 BCE, the silk industry has been growing in China since, first limited to emperors and kings, then spreading to the upper then lower classes.[12] The industry was a jealously guarded secret for three millenia, until Japan got a hold of it.[13]

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India

Silks are super common to see spun in India. As are cottons. Those are probably the two most common fibers depending on exactly where you are in India (it’s a big place!) with the north seeing a little more silk than the south, though the south would see silk in the cities and wealthier areas.

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Japan

Most of the fabric in Japan was silk. Silk production was HUGE. Well, huge after the 4th century when Silk was available in Japan. Before that, silk was limited to China.[14] There are depictions of silk reeling being done in Japan, as silkworm rearing was done in most households. The “best” silk was still done by professionals, but most households had a steady supply after about 6th century.

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Kazakhstan

The silk industry was thriving in Kazakhstan the middle 500 CE.[15] The silk industry was so important that when it was threatened by the Iranian silk, the king had all the Iranian silk burned[16]

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Loas

The culture of Loas is known for a warp ikat,[17] so there’s plenty of weaving going on, I just don’t know how much hand spinning is being done, though the silk is supposedly hand spun as well.[18]

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Malaysian

Most of what I can find on Malaysian textiles are on Songket and batik. They are cotton and silk fabrics woven with silver and gold threads and dyed beautifully. But I have no idea where those threads come from.

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Myanmar

Pyu people of Myanmar were known to be peaceful to the extent of wearing cotton so as to not kill silkworms.[19] They still spin silk today. [20]

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Korea

Silk made it to Korea in the 1200BC with Chinese settlers.[21] Korea was using silk to embroider things such as clothing and palace decorations that resembled spun silver in the Three Kingdoms era[22]

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Sri Lanka

Silk is also found being processed in the homes of Sri Lankans.[23]

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Thailand

The silk in Thailand has been dated to 1,000-300 BCE.[24] How did it get there? Not sure. It's very similar to Chinese silk. One theory is that they had their own silk worms to play with, but Northern Thailand definitely had silk in the first century BCE.

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Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was a bustling center of sericulture in the 4th through 7th centuries CE.[25]The agricultural people of Uzbekistan would also grow cotton and silkworms and spin on hand cranked wheels.[26]