Silk Making

Issara silk is 100% natural Thai silk, handcrafted from the fibers of the mulberry silkworm cocoon.

Our production process begins with the source: the silkworm. Kept in specially made flat bamboo baskets, silkworms are fed locally grown mulberry leaves until they reach the cocoon stage. At this point, each silk worm spins itself into a cocoon using one continuous strand of silk. Finished cocoons are collected, boiled, and individual silk fibers unraveled and spun together into thicker strands for weaving. Referred to as “silk reeling”, this time-consuming process takes hours to complete by hand.

 

Next is the dying stage: our weaving method is a form of weft ikat called ‘mudmee’, which requires patterns be dyed onto the weft silk prior to weaving. To do this, the fine silk yarn is stretched between pieces of wood, and small bunches painstakingly knotted and dyed to create a pattern, similar to tie-dye. This process is repeated several times, depending on the number of colors in the pattern.

After dyeing, the silk is ready to be woven. Sitting at a large wooden loom, the weaver shuttles the weft yarn back and forth horizontally across the warp (vertical yarns), gradually revealing the final pattern. Using native yellow silk cocoons gives our silk a slightly rough, tactile quality never found in synthetic silk.

Being handmade, no two pieces are ever identical, and small imperfections give our fabrics their unique charm.