This article was just shared with me: an art historian and a fashion designer living on Madascar have successfully produced a textile from the silk thread of the golden orb spider. It is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History.I find it fascinating, although the impending fear of a spider biting me during the experiment would prevent me from trying this at home...
After many fits and starts, the two men put together an almost Victorian spider-silk harvesting operation that hired local people to comb the countryside with long bamboo poles, carefully collecting live female spiders — about 3,000 a day — in boxes. The spiders were taken to Mr. Godley, who set up a system in which workers, all women, would handle each spider, gently pulling out the thread that dangled from its spinnerets. (The spiders bite if provoked, but their bites are not dangerous.) The spider would then be placed in a harness, with 23 others, and sit more or less patiently as a spool tugged the rest of its web out in continuous threads that could sometimes stretch as long as 400 yards before the spider had given its all. These 24 threads were then hand-twisted into one and joined into 96-thread strands that served as the foundation of the textile, which is brocaded with traditional Malagasy motifs.
Read more about the Golden Orb Spider Silk HERE.
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