A Comparison of Color Fastness Properties of Mulberry Silk and Tussah Silk Fabrics in Blends with Cellulosic Fibers

Abstract

Although it has been used for centuries; silk’s appearance, touch, and other high-quality properties maintain the popularity of the fiber. However, there are different types of silkworms, so different types of silk fibers are available. Other than Mulberry silk there are some others: eri, muga, tasar and tussah, which are generally deemed “wild silk”. In this study, color fastness properties of one of these wild silk fibers: tussah was investigated in comparison with mulberry silk fiber. For comparison, mulberry and tussah silk fibers were blended with cotton, viscose rayon, and modal fibers and spun using open-end rotor spinning system. After yarn productions; single jersey fabrics were knitted, pretreated and dyed. Color fastness tests were made to evaluate the performances. Results indicate that both types of silk fibers are appropriate for spinning and knitting processes and the fastness results revealed that mulberry fibers resulted with better color fastness properties in comparison with tussah silk fibers

Keywords

• mulberry silk
• tussah silk
• open-end spinning system
• color fastness
• wild silk fibers
• cellulosic fibers