Chapter 476 Reeling Silk
The weather is not that cool, with the lowest temperature in the morning and evening still being 18 degrees.
She felt warm when she hugged Mu Xi when sleeping at night, but Zhao Yeqing still found it very novel. This was the quilt they made themselves, and it was her first time making a quilt, so she had to give it a try.
Silk quilts are soft, skin-friendly and lightweight.
Zhao Yeqing originally liked thick quilts the most, but the weather is not cold now, so a quilt of this weight is not bad.
But in the second half of the night, Zhao Yeqing felt the difference between five kilograms of cotton and five kilograms of silk.
It was too hot. She felt that even in winter, this quilt was more than enough to last her through the winter.
In this temperature, it’s hot if I cover myself, but cold if I don’t. I have to get up in the middle of the night and change my original quilt back.
As soon as Zhao Yeqing woke up in the morning, he took out some old cotton-padded jackets he had collected before from the woven bag, carefully picked out the seams, and took out the old cotton inside. He planned to fill them with silk, which would definitely be very warm.
There is still a part of the cocoons that have not been cooked. Zhao Yeqing kept them for spinning and peeling the silk. She plans to study this before the cotton is grown.
The needle and thread were stuffed into Mu Xi's hands. His skill in this area was better than Zhao Yeqing's. She only told him some changes she wanted to make on the original basis, then let Mu Xi sew and went downstairs to boil the cocoons.
The silk cocoons for making silk quilts were boiled by Mu Xi. But when Zhao Yeqing tried to make them himself, he found it was not that simple. According to the incomplete description on the yellowed pages, after slow-cooking at low temperature, he had to soak them in cold water, then boil them on high heat, and repeat this process several times.
The temperature must also be controlled well. The water temperature should be kept at around 80 degrees and should not be boiled too much.
She was not sure whether she could succeed this time, so she just cooked a few in a small pot to practice.
Zhao Yeqing originally thought that the cocoons would have the smell of insects after being cooked, but unexpectedly, the white cocoons exuded the fragrance of mulberry leaves, without any strange smell at all.
Put the cleaned silk cocoons in a basin of water and shake them gently. The silk without glue slowly spreads out in the water. Zhao Yeqing takes a chopstick and begins to carefully try to poke open a cocoon.
I carefully searched with the tip of chopsticks but couldn't find it. Could it be a problem with the silkworm cocoon?
In order to avoid internal friction, Zhao Yeqing usually looks for the cause in other things first, and it is definitely not his own technical problem.
However, after several unsuccessful attempts, there were already seven or eight silk cocoons floating in the basin that had been poked by Zhao Yeqing. Her patience ran out, and she used chopsticks to stir the basin of cocoons quickly and vigorously for several times as if to vent her anger.
Destroy it, why is it so difficult?
She was about to throw the chopsticks down, but the moment she picked them up, she found that the chopsticks were covered with tangled silk.
Um?
Zhao Yeqing picked up the chopsticks and lifted them up. The cocoons in the basin began to roll one by one, and the white and crystal silk was pulled out, shining in the sunlight.
She froze in place, feeling both angry and amused. She wondered what she had been doing for the past hour or so.
But at least she succeeded. She put the chopsticks back into the basin, picked up the whole basin and went to the brick house, where she passed the silk threads through a wooden stick with a small hole drilled in it and stuck them on the spinning wheel.
The small hole gradually gathered the originally scattered thin silk threads and twisted them into a slightly thicker white silk thread. This is because there is still a little sericin left on it, which condensed the silk threads together when passing through the hole.
The spinning wheel was a bit big. She remembered that the wheels of the silk reeling machines she had seen in videos before were all relatively small. But big wheels have their advantages. One circle was equivalent to three or four circles of that kind of wheel, and the reeling speed was greatly increased.
However, the silk threads made from these cocoons were still a little thin. Zhao Yeqing did not stop until all the silk was extracted. These cocoons were used for experiments, and after making the silk threads, she also wanted to try dyeing them.
Almost all the cocoons in this batch have been used to make quilts, with only a few left. Even if we figure out how to make silk, we have to wait until the next batch of cocoons are produced.
The silk thread from a silk cocoon can be several hundred to more than a thousand meters long. Even though there are only a dozen or so cocoons, the silk thread obtained in the end is still a considerable harvest.
The gum has to be cleaned again and dried before it can be dyed.
The last wash was done with starching. Zhao Yeqing had read many books and novels with ancient backgrounds, in which the word starching was used from time to time, but the description was about using soapberries for washing. He couldn't even recite it by heart and had never understood what starching was.
In order to remove the oil, dirt and glue on the silk fabrics, the primitive method not only needs to use natural soapberry and other detergents, but also needs to use rice soup or rice washing water, that is, water with starch to wash, which can be called "starch".
Zhao Yeqing originally wanted to wash the silk threads directly by diluting starch with water, but he felt it was a bit extravagant, so he washed the rice he was going to eat tonight in advance, and then used the white rice water to wash the silk threads.
Starch is not used very often at home. In fact, most of the time it is used for cleaning. A little bit is used when thickening and frying. Every year, there are a lot of leftover sweet potatoes and potatoes, and some of them will be made into starch.
It can be used when slaughtering pigs, cattle and sheep. It is very effective in cleaning the internal organs of livestock and removing oil, dirt and odors.
Bleach is not available now. Sometimes when white clothes turn yellow, they can be whiter by soaking them in starch and then washing them than by washing them directly.
There wasn’t much silk, and it was hung on a rope in the yard, so it would probably be completely dry by evening.
There are many plants in the mountains that can be used to make dyes. Compared with the previous weather, more brightly colored plants can be collected now. Zhao Yeqing first found the most easily available green dye in the warehouse to dye the silk thread.
They are all pure plants and have been dried. If you want to get green dye, you have to soak them in water first and dilute the color before you can dye them.
Mu Xi finished sewing a cotton coat in one afternoon. Zhao Yeqing couldn't wait to try it on. In less than a minute, his body became hot and he quickly took it off.
"This is much better than cotton!"
Mu Xi rubbed the silk inside. He nailed a few more stitches inside for reinforcement. After rubbing, he found no cotton leakage. He nodded with satisfaction.
"That's right. When we grow cotton next year, we can just use it to spin yarn."
To make clothes, we can only use cotton. It is not enough to rely on the mulberry leaves at home to raise silkworms and have the freedom to wear new clothes.
Seeing that the sun was setting, Mu Xi walked outside the yard and took down the branches of the mulberry tree that could be cut for cuttings. It was almost winter this year and it was no longer suitable for raising silkworms. Taking advantage of the fact that mulberry leaves were not needed during this period, he quickly expanded the mulberry planting area.
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