The Second Part Of Our Visit ToThe Silk Farm,

weaving the silk,

 now dyed the individual strands of silk are fed into the comb,

 good eye sight and a steady hand is required for this job,

 once one of the warps are completed,

 a second different coloured one is put in place,

 it is extremely fine work,

 next the wefts are prepared,

 using a tie and dye technique,

 each piece of the production is by skill of eye and hand,

 once dyed these are used as the cross threads making the weave,

we were told a scarf like this one takes an experienced weaver two full days to make,

 interleaving the weft has to follow a pattern,

 like this one,

 each spindle has to be used in turn,

 if not the patten will not match,

 work in progress,

 with each slide of the shuttle,

 the weave slowly emerges,

 the heddles are raised by foot allowing the shuttle to move back and forth,

 slow work, but it can be speeded up,

 here the shuttle is in a box,

a piece of string is pulled allowing the shuttle to cross faster than can be done by hand alone, but good eye/hand/feet coordination is vital,

 we all found the workshop totally fascinating,

 a different patten,

 means different spindles,

 this machine is slightly more complicated,

each heddle has to be hooked up by hand, it is the black piece of iron just off centre, instead of using feet as there are more than two heddles,

 the ends of the heddles,

 as the cloth is produced it is collected in a roll at the front of the loom,

 the patten starts to appear,

 each one,

 requiring different spindles,

 here the spindles are being loaded with silk,

 but with colours this strong it is a made made dye that has been used,

a simple idea but an effective way to rotate the spindle, a bicycle wheel and chain driven by hand, allows the spindle to rotate at high speed to help load it,

 a slight mistake has been spotted, so it is marked by a pin,

 we then moved on into the exhibition hall,

 where examples of arts and crafts were on display,

 Diana wanted to try her hand at weaving,

 this looked a lot more ornate then the ones in the workshop,

a dress made of cocoons,

 a bit easier to see here,

 traditional Cambodian silk clothes,

 some of the silk so sheer you can see through it,

I was only half joking when I said Diana wanted to try weaving, this is a workshop for tourist that wish to learn the craft, you can enrol on a daily/weekly bases,

 after all of the walking a cool beer, tea and soda,

and an ice cream for Diana, a really interesting afternoon out for all of us.