Elaborate Cape & Four Meter Scarf Made of Golden Orb Spider Silk

[güttsfükk]

An elaborately embroidered cape made entirely out of golden silk extracted from spiders is to go on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The silk thread comes from female Golden Orb spiders collected in the highlands of Madagascar. Eighty people collected, harnessed and released wild spiders every day for seven years to produce enough silk.

A four metre long scarf will be displayed with the cape, the largest items ever fashioned from the spider silk.

More than a million spiders were involved in the project created by Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley.

The brilliant golden colour is the natural hue of the silk. "This is a fantasy, this is a magic. It's to beguile and enchant," says Nicholas Godley. "It's a bit of poetry really."

"We both thought this was the craziest thing you could possibly do that has never been done," says Simon Peers, who admits that he is still frightened of spiders despite the project.

Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9674949.stm

[grimekeepa]

that is theeeeeee most amazing thing I have seen this year! I really dig the spider stitching.

[johnleeknoefler]

Wow!. I used to have Orb spiders as pets in Nebraska. I never considered something like this. I do know their webs are very strong and the threads seem thicker than smaller spiders.
My spiders looked like this one. They got fat on grasshoppers I would catch for them. I would toss the hoppers into their net and watch the spectacle.

[Faline]

Cool stuff!

[pankajsharma]

[Pogrom]

[fin_razelle]

Omg i have been trying for years to get those spiders!!! How coolcool

[Cancun78]

They're in big numbers around here. A wasp killed on in the garage and my niece adopted one in the flower bed.