A cultivated Bombyx mori male moth used for Ahimsa silk
Hey lovely readers! We were going through some of our fabrics recently and came across some of Ashley's hand-dyed silks. She then told us that it was Ahimsa silk. This type of silk is also known as "peace" silk. We thought this was really cool, so we did a little digging into what exactly Ahimsa silk was.
A lot of people don't know that the silk worm, usually the Bombyx mori species, is boiled alive in its cocoon before hatching to prevent damage to the silk fibers. This is where the Buddhist practice of Ahimsa, or "non-violence" comes in. With Ahimsa silk, the worm is allowed to survive and even mate and reproduce. These cultivated moths can lay between 200 and 1,000 eggs each!!! Crazy right?
Cultivated silkworm eggs are refridgerated until they are needed to hatch. The main problem with this is, upon hatching, there is usually not enough food to feed the new generation of silk worms, which can reach up to 2.5 million!!! So it seems like saving the life of one or two silkworms can cause so many more deaths of their silkworm babies due to starvation.
At Haberdashery, we thought this was the perfect follow-up to our first Greenwashing blog post on fair trade regulations. We find it important that we give as many tools as possible to our readers and followers to make more environmentally responsible buying decisions, and not take the word, "green", at face value. Again thanks for reading loves.
At Haberdashery we carry various makes and colors of organic and eco-friendly fabrics. We are also able to special order dye and make custom, eco-friendly items from these materials. Feel free to check out our online store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/haberdasheryefs, email us at info@habsav.com or visits us at our studio at 311 W. Broughton St. in Savannah, Ga!
A lot of people don't know that the silk worm, usually the Bombyx mori species, is boiled alive in its cocoon before hatching to prevent damage to the silk fibers. This is where the Buddhist practice of Ahimsa, or "non-violence" comes in. With Ahimsa silk, the worm is allowed to survive and even mate and reproduce. These cultivated moths can lay between 200 and 1,000 eggs each!!! Crazy right?
Cultivated silkworm eggs are refridgerated until they are needed to hatch. The main problem with this is, upon hatching, there is usually not enough food to feed the new generation of silk worms, which can reach up to 2.5 million!!! So it seems like saving the life of one or two silkworms can cause so many more deaths of their silkworm babies due to starvation.
At Haberdashery, we thought this was the perfect follow-up to our first Greenwashing blog post on fair trade regulations. We find it important that we give as many tools as possible to our readers and followers to make more environmentally responsible buying decisions, and not take the word, "green", at face value. Again thanks for reading loves.
At Haberdashery we carry various makes and colors of organic and eco-friendly fabrics. We are also able to special order dye and make custom, eco-friendly items from these materials. Feel free to check out our online store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/haberdasheryefs, email us at info@habsav.com or visits us at our studio at 311 W. Broughton St. in Savannah, Ga!
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