Weavers in Madagascar have done something never seen before. After 4 years of work, and the silk from 1 milion spiders, they have made an 11 x 4ft tapestry made completely of spider silk.
The color is a radiant gold — the natural color of the golden orb-weaving spider, from the Nephila genus, one that’s found in several parts of the world.
Simon Peers, a textile maker who lives in Madagascar, conceived the project. Weaving spider silk is not traditional there; a French missionary dreamed it up over a century ago but failed at it. The only known spider silk tapestry was shown in Paris in 1900 but then disappeared.
The color is a radiant gold — the natural color of the golden orb-weaving spider, from the Nephila genus, one that’s found in several parts of the world.
Simon Peers, a textile maker who lives in Madagascar, conceived the project. Weaving spider silk is not traditional there; a French missionary dreamed it up over a century ago but failed at it. The only known spider silk tapestry was shown in Paris in 1900 but then disappeared.
The task of silking a spider starts with a small machine — designed centuries ago when the first attempts to silk spiders were begun — that holds the spider down.
The main threads consist of 96 twisted silk lines. The brocaded patterns in the tapestry — stylized birds and flowers — are woven with threads made up of 960 spider silk lines.Peers says they never broke a single strand, yet the tapestry is as soft as cashmere.
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