iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

Fedi hive-mind for #visiblemending #mending #embroidery #weaving etc: I bought this beautiful old room divider at a thrift store, but the fabric is very fragile and damaged. There are several small holes, and I created additional tears after washing just by […] [Original post on toot.community]

A room divider of dark oak wood consisting of three frames with a floral pattern fabric in them.

Close-up of fabric showing different colors, mostly dark reds, oranges and light greensm There is a tear in the fabric and the weave is also showing tiny holes that are only visible up close.

A hand holding a linen counter held in front of the fabric in an old room divider. It shows a close-up of a hole in the fabric, and the structure of the weave.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

First year I managed to grow pumpkins vertically. Wanted to try it for several years after I saw some massive hanging pumpkins in a rooftop garden, because space is limited in my vegetable garden, and it seems like a good solution for pumpkins rotting on the ground. #pumpkins #moestuin

Two pumpkin plants growing against a fence - one is crawling up and then turns left at the top of the fence, the other grows in the opposite direction. Some yellow flowers are visible, and small pumpkins here and there if one zooms in. In the background is a brick wall and a small stroke of blue sky with some fragments of clouds. In the foreground is dirt and two plants held up with sticks (one with a bamboo stick, the other with a metal spiral), some grass to the left and some flax plants in the middle.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026

This year's flax flowers were tiny for some reason (pictures from June 28). I tried to make a cyanoprint of a plant with a flower, but the flower had lost half of its petals between the field and the paper, and the remaining petals are barely visible (i guess […] [Original post on toot.community]

View of several flax plants from above. Some are in bloom, with small light-blue flowers, while some have bloomed already, and carry green seed pods in the place of flowers.

A flax-plant with a small, light-blue flower viewed through a magnifying glass with a grey plastic rim. The plant and the flower are in focus, with other plants and dead leaves blurred in the background. In the background surrounding the magnifying glass, part of a fence and a finger holding the magnifying glass is visible.

A hand holding a flax plant between thumb and index-finger, viewed by a person looking down, to provide some perspective on the size of the flowers. The flower is about the size of half an intermediate phalange of the index-finger. In the background, dead leaves and other plants are visible, as well as a pair of feet wearing sandals.

Cyanoprint on a light wooden table. The print shows a small plant with lance-shaped leaves, at the top are some smaller leaves - these are crown leaves of flowers. One bud that fell off is visible next to the plant, and below it one can vaguely see something droplet-shaped, which is a petal of a flax-flower that fell off.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2026

Managed to obtain a copy of this book! Chenciner was a British ethnographer, and Magomedkhanov is a Dagestanian ethnograper and sociologist who also revived naturally dyed carpets in Dagestan. For this book they catalogued traditional tattoos, which turned out […] [Original post on toot.community]

The cover of a thin paperback entitled "Tattooed mountain women and spoon boxes of Daghestan". The subtitle reads "Magic medicine symbols in silk, stone, wood and flesh". The author's names are Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov and Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov. The cover also features two photographs of elderly Daghestanian women, wearing headscarves and crossing their arms in front of their chest with the backs of their hands showing. They have small tattoos of symbols on their forearms, wrists and hands.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2026

Finally mustered up the courage to try weaving with my own yarn. It looks a bit messy, but it feels pretty cool to be able to say I made a piece of textile from scratch entirely by hand, working together with nature to cultivate and process the flax - no […] [Original post on toot.community]

A narrow woven band wrapped around a hand several times, showing different segments of the band which look a bit rough and vary in width. The ends are tied up in three small braids with long, untrimmed ends showing how rough the original yarn was.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 28/05/2026

After reading an interview with the author, I bought "How to kill a language" by Sophia Smith Galer. I must admit, it's starting off strong. #linguistics #language #multilingualism

Author's note at the beginning of the book, which reads: "You will notice when reading this book that words in other languages besides English are not italicized. This is because these words needn't be highlighted as being distinctive or other, and languages needn't be compartmentalized from each other. In this book, the words all belong to the multilingual speakers I interviewed, and they represent the only point that I really want to emphasize: that all languages belong to all of us."

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 24/05/2026

Met up with other participants of the 1m2 flax project in the Netherlands. Everyone brought their results, ranging from bunches of hackled fibres to beautiful woven cloths. Afterwards we embroidered outside on antique local linen using linen yarn dyed in […] [Original post on toot.community]

A ball of grey, hand-spun linen yarn, next to a woven band with a simple pattern of blue flowers on off-white; the heart of the flowers is grey hand-spun linen. Under it is a small antique linen cloth, with a few bubbles in different, adjacent colors embroidered on it - inspired by microscopic images of flax stems. On top of the cloth are several short linen threads in different colors, tied together with a knot.

In progress photograph of a small band being woven from rough, silvery grey hand-spun linen yarn.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2026

I think my skills for weaving bands with a rigid heddle are improving #weaving

A hand holding a hand-woven band with red and dark blue warp and white weft visible on the side.

Several hand-woven bands in different colors laid out on a table. They vary in evenness and tightness of the weave.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2026

New release of the Typological Atlas of the Languages of Dagestan, with a few new chapters and a new visualization (in addition to a bunch of technical fixes): lingconlab.ru/tald/changes.html

A tile map visualization of the languages spoken in the eastern Caucasus, showing the distribution of evidentiality in the tense system. Most of the area is colored dark blue where evidentiality in the tense system is attested, only several tiles in the southeast are yellow where it is not attested. A few grey tiles show idioms for which there is no data.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 19/02/2026

My homemade linen yarn has been cleaned and is ready for use. Now I'm learning / practicing to weave bands using a rigid heddle my partner 3D-printed for me so I can turn part of my own yarn into a handwoven band. #weaving #linen #flax #1m2vlas

Ball of greyish linen yarn with threads of varying thickness and smoothness

Bright orange rigid heddle for weaving, 3D printed in PLA, warped with white and red threads

Hand-woven bands in various colors, all unevenly woven

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 07/02/2026

Recently switched from spotify to cd's and mp3's, and purchased this album with field recordings of Circassian music. I've said this before, but I wish more projects like Ored existed in the North Caucasus. You can listen to the album here […] [Original post on toot.community]

Hand holding a cd entitled "Music from the Caucasus. The archive of ORED recordings 2013-23".

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 23/01/2026

Finished spinning my homegrown flax. It's not the most beautiful yarn, but spinning is rather difficult. Up next: preparing the yarn to either weave or embroider with it, and plant the seeds of last year's plants for the next cycle. #1m2vlas #flax #spinning #spindle

Hand holding a spindle with spun yarn of varying thickness wrapped around it.

Plastic container with dried flax seed pods.

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Samira Verhees @smrms.mastodon.nl.ap.brid.gy · 28/12/2025

went to the forest just before dark looking for mushrooms that light up under a uv-light. found a few decaying sulphur tufts, and a bug (possibly a milipede?) inside a tree bark. #mushtodon

two decaying sulphur tufts on a forest floor with gills lighting up under a uv-light

several decaying sulphur tufts on a dark forest floor, partially lighting up under a uv-light

two decaying sulphur tufts in center and a few smaller pieces to the side on a forest floor, lighting up under a uv-light

a bug inside the bark of a tree, lighting up under a uv-light in the dark

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