The cocoon is put into boiling water 100 deegrees, and the silk thread is then extracted. The length of silk thread in a cocoon varies considerably, from 500 to 1,500 yards, depending on the kind of worm that produced it. In Ban Nongkha, most silk thread is hand-reeled by women, the filaments form several cocoons being reeled together on a wooden spindle into a uniform strand of raw silk.