Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: weird
  • Music: Wicked, "What Is This Feeling?"

Legs legs legs legs engulf devour legs.

Brooke, being Brooke, and hence attracted to anything that involves "science" and "spiders," provided me with a link to a full-sized piece of fabric made from spider silk. Because this was awesome, I promptly shared it with my friend Rae. The following conversation occurred:

raelee: That is a lot of spiders. But very purty silk.
seanan_mcguire: I will put them all in the bed of the next human who vexes me.
raelee: *eyes you* Duly noted.
seanan_mcguire: You rarely vex.
raelee: Still, sharing my bed with a million spiders, while extremely kinky, is not high on the list of activities I'd like to participate in before my death... especially since it has a high probability of leading to said death. Therefore, I'll take the proper precautions so as not to vex.
seanan_mcguire: It'd be like, LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS LEGS *enrobe* *devour* LEGS.
raelee: Yeahhhh, I just freaked out reading that.
seanan_mcguire: ...oooops. Sorry.
raelee: s'ok, everyone needs to have a mini seizure at their desk occasionally.

There are days when I truly feel that being my friend ought to come with a hazard advisory of some sort. Or maybe just a little label that flashes after pictures of horrible things, like botflies and flesh-eating bacteria. "WARNING: Seanan is going to think this is cool, and probably want to discuss it with you. Please begin self-sedation now."

I was invented to make sure you stay fully alert and aware of your surroundings. Lest the million spiders in your bed catch you by surprise.
Tags: animals rock, mad science, rae
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  • 57 comments

Vindication!

yarntricia

September 25 2009, 19:53:23 UTC 7 years ago

My response when bobmage showed me yesterday: I WANT!!!! Not the spiders, not the fabric, I want the thread. 400 yard fiber length?! drool, drool! I really, really, really want to crochet with spider silk. Several years ago when word first came out of the goats genegeneered to produce silk in their milk - I wanted the thread. It was very disappointing to read the press release from that they had "abandoned their efforts to make yarn", and were going to stick with felting it.

Then last summer, when our yard filled with spiders, and spider webs, I started seriously contemplating stealing their webs. I got as far as determining how many strands would be needed - 16 - and our silk is still white at that thickness.

I even asked the bug zoo guy if tarantulas could be trained to spin more usefully - he scoffed! Now I learn that not only, am I NOT the only person to contemplate it, but someone spent half a million dollars doing it! And there were earlier attempts (which were thought to be successful). So, if I am crazy, at least I am not alone!

Re: Vindication!

seanan_mcguire

September 26 2009, 15:39:31 UTC 7 years ago

See, tarantulas, maybe not so much; they do short-strand webs, so I can see where you'd want to stick with the orb weavers. Let us just avoid the lesson of Ice Spiders, wherein they made orb weavers the size of cocker spaniels. The silk isn't worth it.