While at the Jiyaliren Silk Village near Hotan in Xinjiang Province, China, I bought 1kg of hand reeled silk yarn.
This yarn was quite “wiry” and “springy” (see image below). In order to be dyed and woven, the sericin needs to be removed.
I looked online and in my notes from the Maiwa natural dyeing and indigo courses to find out how best to remove the sericin. I found that removing all the serecin from wild silk weakens the yarn.

I collated four of the methods I found online and proceeded as follows:
– Dissolve 8g pure soap flakes/1 litre of hot tap water in my medium sized pot (filled with hot water to about 10cm from the top (~12l water) and added 96g Marseille soap flakes)
– I doubled a skein over and tied a loose loop of string through the doubled skein. I then inserted a stick through the string loop and balanced the stick across the top of the pot. This meant that the skein was largely kept off the bottom of the pot while being heated. In order to reduce tangling and also to allow good movement of the water in the pot, I treated a single skein per pot.
– Heated to ~80°C; held this temperature for 45-60 minutes; dunked the skein up and down several times over this time.
– Rinsed thoroughly, alternating running tap water rinses with swooshing and soaking in a bowl. I started with hot tap water, gradually cooling to luke warm. I paid close attention to the area of the ties that bind the skein.
– Once the rinse water was mostly clear (5-6 rinses), I soaked the skein for ~15 minutes in 30ml 10% acetic acid in 4l of cool water.
– Next, rinse another 2-3 times in cool water.
– Finally, I rolled the skeins in a clean towel to remove excess water and hung the skeins to dry fully (takes 2-3 days inside on the drying rack with the fan going). Once a day I rotated the skeins and gave them a fluff.

The yarn is so much whiter, softer and fluffier than before the scouring process. At first, I only scoured one skein to see how the process went. This skein underwent a longer heat treatment than the other 4 skeins, and accordingly, has more of the sericin removed. I am curious to see if this has weakened the yarn too much for it to be used a warp yarn. It will also be interesting to see how each of the skeins behaves as they are wound into balls! Hopefully, they are not too tangly.