My mum sent me this article from the New York Times about silk made from spiders’ webs.
11 feet of cloth made from Golden Orb Spider silk. Photo: Fred R. Conrad, New York Times
What I like, apart from the fact that it makes my current project seem a little less foolhardy and tedious, is that they were so careful about looking after the spiders:
“…[t]hey set up a system in which the spiders being used were released daily, and detailed spreadsheets were kept to chart the number of spiders used, their yield and the casualty rate.”
I can’t say that I’m going to take away all the conkers and start weaving silk, but I might think about them a little differently now!
