Meen Yeen

• Aleris • adult • They/them or whatever • Spider silk, plant pigments, whatever else I make and try • main @cosmicyeen

[unidentifiedmammal]

I have... admittedly been sidetracked with messing around with spider silks (as tends to happen), but recently I decided to try to get back into it and actually *use* more of what i collected last fall. And that means I've decided to dye some, using some of my (now ~3 year old) orcein lichen dye

The dye absorbed surprisingly well, no heat or mordant, literally just a few mL of water and straight ammonia-extracted juice in a jar left overnight. It evaporated, but I just rehydrated it. I rinsed off the spider silk first, but it didn't have any mordant or other treatment.

The strand of silk marked off on the stick with a red mark on either side was modified by dropping a small amount of vinegar into the dye jar halfway through, but the color shift is barely noticeable. I'll see what happens when I embroider with it.

The texture and strength seems mostly unaffected by the dyeing. I also went out and collected a strand of white joro silk from the garden (they have smaller white webs earlier in the season!)

I'll have to try another dye with these silks at some point too

[unidentifiedmammal]

I decided to disassemble some old language notebooks I had and intentionally water damaged the pages with ammonia lichen juice + eventually tap water.

The cover boards were the backs of the notebooks. I don't know what i'll do with it, but I might scribble in it and try to bleach some of the pages (?) and overall just fill it with interesting looking trash.

I used an old dryer sheet for the ? thing on the spine binding

it's slightly wonky but it'll work well to fill with bullshit methinks

[unidentifiedmammal]

I decided to disassemble some old language notebooks I had and intentionally water damaged the pages with ammonia lichen juice + eventually tap water.

The cover boards were the backs of the notebooks. I don't know what i'll do with it, but I might scribble in it and try to bleach some of the pages (?) and overall just fill it with interesting looking trash.

I used an old dryer sheet for the ? thing on the spine binding

it's slightly wonky but it'll work well to fill with bullshit methinks

[unidentifiedmammal]

A bit of a group crafting post with some stuff I've done recently:

Cotton(?) warp, handspun camel/cotton/eri silk with some nat dyes. Havent done a ton of weaving so this is a bit clunky, but i still like it

Messing around with some thai sweet rice lake pigment on paper and one of the sand flea circles I made (unfortunately it dried a bit duller than this, but these pictures were so pretty even if ephemeral that i wanted to share them)

i ended up coating all three i made in clear acrylic to make them more durable

And my favorite of some more pigment tests, a field of orange made with georgia red clay mixed with clear acrylic. It reminds me of the surface of the sun

[unidentifiedmammal]

I've been experimenting with using sand flea (more commonly known as mole crab) exoskeleton shards as a kind of... opalescent tile? faux-inlaid-lacquerware kind of thing.

I broke them into pieces (very easy, they're extremely thin crustacean plates just a bit more calcium-like than shrimp shells) and arranged them on these wooden circles with tweezers. One was bare wood and the other was painted black. I used PVA craft glue.

Even just in the lamplight they look beautiful! it's a lot more subtle than mother-of-pearl, and doesn't show up from every angle, but i'm very happy with it. I'm still unsure if i'll be able to coat it with anything to make it more durable, since I don't know if the opalescent surface will have its structure ruined from a coating, but i'd like to try at some point (maybe clear nail polish? i need to get some)

One of the smaller intact exoskeletons+ one of the feeder antenna next to the first disc I made. I found these like you would find the average seashell, washed up at the edges of waves. these should all be from one of two species of the genus emerita, but i also found a few genus albunea in the same place. I got them last year (on the Florida panhandle off the gulf of Mexico) last May (my crafting is both slow and spontaneous)

In indirect light, they just look like white tiling:

But if you move them into the light and catch them at the right angle, they spring to life:

The underside of the shell is the shiny part, but the top of their shells are also a nice sand color. They live on the wave's edge and filter feed, so you find their shells among other seashells occasionally. I believe the big ones are all female.

this was really fun to work with, i love sand fleas and this was surprisingly easy to make, just a bit tedious xD it would be interesting to make patterns out of the "rough" parts of the shell contrasted with the smoother parts of the shell. I still have one more wooden circle, so i might try that next.

Anyways, thanks for looking!

[unidentifiedmammal]

I've been experimenting with using sand flea (more commonly known as mole crab) exoskeleton shards as a kind of... opalescent tile? faux-inlaid-lacquerware kind of thing.

I broke them into pieces (very easy, they're extremely thin crustacean plates just a bit more calcium-like than shrimp shells) and arranged them on these wooden circles with tweezers. One was bare wood and the other was painted black. I used PVA craft glue.

Even just in the lamplight they look beautiful! it's a lot more subtle than mother-of-pearl, and doesn't show up from every angle, but i'm very happy with it. I'm still unsure if i'll be able to coat it with anything to make it more durable, since I don't know if the opalescent surface will have its structure ruined from a coating, but i'd like to try at some point (maybe clear nail polish? i need to get some)

One of the smaller intact exoskeletons+ one of the feeder antenna next to the first disc I made. I found these like you would find the average seashell, washed up at the edges of waves. these should all be from one of two species of the genus emerita, but i also found a few genus albunea in the same place. I got them last year (on the Florida panhandle off the gulf of Mexico) last May (my crafting is both slow and spontaneous)

In indirect light, they just look like white tiling:

But if you move them into the light and catch them at the right angle, they spring to life:

The underside of the shell is the shiny part, but the top of their shells are also a nice sand color. They live on the wave's edge and filter feed, so you find their shells among other seashells occasionally. I believe the big ones are all female.

this was really fun to work with, i love sand fleas and this was surprisingly easy to make, just a bit tedious xD it would be interesting to make patterns out of the "rough" parts of the shell contrasted with the smoother parts of the shell. I still have one more wooden circle, so i might try that next.

Anyways, thanks for looking!

[moonbittenhare]

Hey, stranger! My name's Tyto. I've previously asked for help here, and it ended up saving my cat's health, and for that I cannot be thankful enough, his body recovered fully, and I was able to leave him with my family without fear while I came to the city to attend uni!

I scored a residential scholarship, so I have a roof over my head. However there are common expenses and food that I need to think about, so I've decided to do what I do best to survive, crochet!

Right now I am surviving on what little I've made on the few orders I had back home and some help from my grandmother, so I am forced to ask for help in getting yarn to be able to make things to sell, at the very least to start. If you're willing and able, I'll appreciate every bit of help, since yarn isn't that costly here, and if you have ideas for things to make, I'm very much all ears!

Thank you, stranger, for your time, and I hope you like my designs!

Yarn fund here!

[celestialeris]

sixty hanging out

[weirdmarsupial]

Found a local fiber arts group to hang out with. By which I mean I'm weaving on my balcony surrounded by three big orb weavers' webs

[unidentifiedmammal]

Some glamor shots as i fill out more of the Rectangle. Also a look at how i store the spider silk (if it works, it works)

[unidentifiedmammal]

Please tell me you have a video of your spider silk collection process

It's a bit difficult to film with one hand, but here's a video of one of the support threads of a particularly huge and easy to collect web. This whole web was easily 10-12ft wide, and had these support threads you could literally just twirl onto a stick:

Most of the webs aren't *this* big and easy to collect, but for most of them it is just as easy as Grab Support Threads and hope the wind doesn't blow it all away. If i'm winding two threads together, it can get a bit tricky, but it's still surprisingly simple!

Not all webs can be collected like this. Some of them have very thin supports, so you have to use your judgement on how "ripe" a web is to get a thread from it.

The spiders get a bit pissed but they just kinda crawl to the opposite part of the web and chill there. I've never had any issue from them over the years. They either repair or rebuild the webs when i'm done depending on how much i take

[unidentifiedmammal]

May I see the spider please I love spiders…

The big girllll (one of dozens here, at least)

They are such cool spiders

[unidentifiedmammal]

this is just a prototype/concept testing thingamabob BUT.... This is spider silk embroidery! It's literally a tiny rectangle (less than a centimeter) but it's so shiny and pretty.

Collected from webs of the Joro spider, a type of golden orb weaver. Yes, it's naturally that golden

This is from the support threads, not washed at all. The sticky inner web wasn't used, as it's goopy and full of debris. The support threads are also the longest and the strongest, so i can pluck off 1-2ft sections at a time (usually combining a few separate strands into one thread)

And some photos of the back + the hoop contraption, made with spare parts:

Dunno what i'll do with this concept yet but i think the whole thing would look cool covered in these rectangles. It would be nice to embroider a joro spider with it, but I don't have the colors (and it'd be mighty complex) but we'll see

[cosmicyeen]

I still have to set this in hot water but I made a lil bit of cat yarn from Juniper's fluff. She remains unimpressed

[moonbittenhare]

I need help.

Hey, y'all! I'm Tyto, I'm a 22 years old from Argentina with a special needs cat. I recently lost my job and my good health, and with it, the life I built away from my parental home, my friends, and my partner (they're just far away and can't see them). I lost all of the money I had saved when I got scammed trying to sell my fridge to pay for my lease breaking fee (long story), and now I have no money to pay for debts, nor my cat's prescribed food. I am actively looking for jobs everywhere I can and my health allows, but I am not being contacted back. In the meantime, I am reaching out for help, because I'm out of options of what I can do and I need to stabilize myself and not succumb to debt.

Thank you for taking the time to read, stranger, wish me luck ;; Help me and Beebo here.

The Beebo, drainer of wallets with his lack of proper piss.

[cosmicyeen]

I can vouch for my friend Tyto here, i've been good friends with them for nearly 5 years now and they're going through some rough times at the moment :( 🧡

[moonbittenhare]

Stress crocheting a shawl because why not! Hi, hello tumblr

[cosmicyeen]

Sometimes u are seized by the fatal need to Make a Tiny Book

[cosmicyeen]

IT IS FINISHED