Weaving Using Spider Silk

An 11-foot-long cloth of thread from golden orb spiders will be at the American Museum of Natural History starting Thursday.

For anyone considering going into the business of manufacturing traditional textiles using the filaments extracted from the spinnerets of the golden orb spider of Madagascar, here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

The largest spiders, the females, can grow to about the size of a small adult human hand, with hairy stiletto legs and the ability to eat large, flying insects.

Only the females produce the silk, which is renowned for both its striking saffron color and its tensile strength (five to six times stronger than steel by weight). But these females are notoriously cannibalistic and if left to their own devices will quickly reduce the entire silk assembly line to arachnid carnage.

They don’t seem to want to work in the winter, and when it rains too much, their silk becomes viscous and cannot be used.

And if the spiders in the factory begin to disappear mysteriously, it might be because, in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, it is believed by some that eating these spiders, fried, is good for the throat or just good eating.

“There was, shall we say, a fairly steep learning curve,” said Simon Peers, a British art historian and textile expert who has lived in Madagascar for two decades. Five years ago Mr. Peers and Nicholas Godley, an American fashion designer also living on the island, began a partnership to do what no one there, or anywhere, had tried for more than 100 years: to harness spiders to make silk in the same way that silkworm cocoons have been used for thousands of years.... - New York Times
By Randy Kennedy
Published: September 22, 2009

Visit The New York Times for the entire article.

Learn more about spiders at the Wilkinson Public Library.

~ Faith