Silk is a soft and smooth lightweight delicate fabric. It has a nice shimmery appearance. Silk is one of the finest yarns available to fabric producers and can be used for some of the most delicate and elegant fabrics or some rustic looks such as silk tweeds made with the shorter filaments. According to well-established Chinese legend, Empress Hsi Ling Shi, wife of Emperor Huang Ti, was the first person to accidentally discover silk as weavable fiber. One day, when the empress was sipping tea under a mulberry tree, a cocoon fell into her cup and began to unravel. The empress became so enamored with the shimmering threads, she discovered their source, the Bombyx mori silkworm found in the white mulberry. The empress soon developed sericulture, the cultivation of silkworms, and invented the reel and loom. Thus began the history of silk.