Silk cocoons

Today I attended a small tour to a  Zapotec village (Teotitlán del Valle) where this family's business is raising silk worms (and the mulberry trees the leaves of which are used to feed them), spinning the silk, weaving silk, dyeing and weaving wool and making garments with the woven cloth. It was immensely fascinating, and part of the tour was hands-on. Here we are sorting silk worm cocoons, some for reeling the fine silk threads off in a continuous strand and others for spinning the strands that are shorter. Here the common method is spinning, and the reeling is more common in Asia. 
One extra is of the maestra demonstrating how to spin with a drop spindle, and the other is of one family member demonstrating how to spin with a treadle spinning wheel. After the demonstrations we all got to try each method, as well as reeling strands off the cocoons, which had all been boiled to remove a gummy substance. 
Most of us had never spun before, so it was quite fun and humbling! All of the work is done by the family. Their knowledge and skill is tremendous, as was their friendliness and hospitality!