During an early morning walk this past October through and around house-sized sandstone boulders near the top of Pigeon Mountain in Georgia, I got to know spider webs in an intimate and sticky way, but also in a way that led me to seek out a comprehensible textbook about spiders and their webs. The spiders in Georgia had built great block webs in three dimensions!
After reading a bit of the spider book I discovered that spiders are among the most fascinating creatures found on Earth.

Here is a case-in-point that I ran across on the internet the other day when looking for “weavers” who work cheap.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/spiderweb/

that's pretty amazing!

Yeeaugh. but somehow fascinating.

Speaking of which my friend Tim King the Bugman, has an extensive collection of large ceramic tiles of actual spiderwebs hanging on the outside wall of his log cabin.

What colors, what designs. What fine Art. Tim was not home and he does't have a phone, but his wife told me how Tim does it...

First of all it is done very carefully, then...

(1) Spray paint the web lightly in the color of your choosing.
(2) Sneak up to the web and place the 12" X 12" tile against the plane of the web, and carefully attach tape to the main guy lines of the web.
(3) Quickly flick off the spider...she will tear up your web in a few seconds if you don't.
(4) I don't know if there are any other steps...do you?

Wordwind? of troy? Zed? etaoin? Anyone?

Don't know what the next step is but poor spider. She goes to all that work to create a virtually invisible trap then some activist for Save the Gnats sneaks up and spray paints it and her hot pink! No wonder the spider is thoroughly pissed off and has to be flicked off.
(I should think the designs would be lovely though.)

might be something interesting here:

http://www.spiderwebfarm.com/

Thanks etaoin, but I couldn't find anything on Spiderking's site that would help me with my construction. I might see Tim King this weekend and if so I'll get the scoop and pass it on here.

Spiders have been making webs since the Cretaceous,
Doc Bill supplied this URL. I hope it doesn't take 33 years to resolve my lizard fossil like the web-in-amber one here.
Gee whiz by then I will be over fifty-five.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3129777.stm

ah, sorry, milo.

this is all I found, too:

REAL SPIDER WEBS ARE HARVESTED - 

collected by Will Knight. The colorless, fragile web of an orb-weaving spider called Araneidae is first brought to light by painting. It is then transferred by hand to a wooden plaque where it is protected with a fine furniture finish to assure a lifetime of enjoyment for all web lover.


I just thought I would share this place, since it's just over a town or two from me...

You know what, etaoin, one sweet fine day you just might go over and visit that strange and most odd gentleman yourself.

Real life goes on without the internet.
And maybe you will report back to us on what you find.

Zed, !

Anyone actually subscribing to "Save the Gnats" should come visit me. Get 'em a good case of the screaming mee-mees and they'll never want to save another gnat in their lives!
mee-mees are small gnats that will sting you to the point of insanity and drive you from the beach quicker than someone yelling "shark!"

You mean there are pests in paradise? Flies in the frangipane? Bugs on the beach?

Mee-mees hovering over the hammock. Quelle horreur!

"Or maybe it was an effort collectively by these spiders to try and catch a sheep."

What a wonderfully comical proposition!