Traditionally an important role for women in the economy of rural regions, silk-making encompasses planting mulberry, raising silkworms, unreeling silk, making thread, and designing and weaving fabric.

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The chamber was packed, with the MEPs - including Robert Kilroy-Silk making a very rare appearance, sitting in the non-aligned section with Jean Marie le Pen et al - parked behind their computer screens in semi-circular rows.

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The largest employer in Lisbon, the company started out 100 years ago making silk-insulated wires for telephones.

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That led to helping the village revive its business of making silk weavings with age-old techniques but with modern designs that sell in the city.

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For his entry in the 2012 edition of Who's Who, the director listed his interests as "eating, being difficult, making table mats, washing silk shirts" and "doing Pilates badly".

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"I love making the bodies of the hat out of the silk dupioni, but then when it gets to trimming the hat, and I can actually take a strip of fabric and weave it, wind it and swirl it up with silk organza into a rose curl or a Marguerite, and I feel like a sculptor, " Steinmann said.

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In a village in Hubei province, a woman who made money raising silk worms and planting tea spent a good part of her profits making sure her daughter learned how to use a computer.

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It is thanks to companies like these that Italy still exports more food-processing machines, washing machines, fridges, shoes and shoe-making machines, ski boots, ceramic tiles, jewels, woollen and silk clothes, radiators and boilers, optical frames and neck-ties than any other country in the world.

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