A Logo In The Making

Sorry for the radio silence lately!
Back in the saddle with the creation of my 'Mersona' and brand, for lack of a better term, I've been a busy little fish! Finally getting to order my dream mermaid tail is about to become a reality.
I'm planning Freyja The Viking Mermaid t-shirts, and even completed a final draft of a logo that will be featured on t-shirts and hopefully other merchandise. It would be fun to have patches and stickers etc. with my logo design.

After I finished the final concept sketch for my logo, I put it through Photoshop to clean it up a bit.
Just for fun I ended up playing with filters, and created this carved-in-stone look, similar to carvings on the runestones scattered around Scandinavia.
I wanted something pretty and full of fantasy, but still very Viking, and representative of the culture and ancient carvings. This is preferred over the a 'modern tribal' versions of Viking knot-work designs I see everywhere.
I'm hoping to refine my pencil sketch by creating a vector from it, to make a final logo for print.
The watermark will not be part of the final design, and I plan on cleaning up her trident a bit, too.

Saving up for a Finfolk Productions silicone mermaid tail has gone better than I expected. Thanks to the help of a few friends donations, my frugal saving (as best I could) and a nice tax refund this year, I have more than enough for a down payment to at least get in line for a tail, made by the lovely Bryn and Abbey.
There are a few things I need to do before I jump in that lagoon, however; like loose the proof of my holiday sins. This year was particularly epic with the good food and drink with amazing people.
It's not much, a matter of barely an inch around my waist, hips and butt. With that said, being someone who sews a lot and makes her own clothing, it does matter if I'm going to be taking detailed measurements for a swimmable silicone mermaid tail that needs to comfortably fit like a glove! So, in another few weeks, I'll be back down to my 'fighting weight' and will go for it.
XOXO!

A Deep Breath

Today I discovered that my breath hold while swiming underwater has gotten longer.
A good 10 seconds longer, and even if that doesn't seem like much, it is when you are propelling your body under the water for any extended amount of time.

While my current breath hold time is nothing to get excited over, today I realized that when I focused on something other than how long I had before I needed to surface, I was able to relax. The jittery feeling in my diaphragm melted away. I ignored the little bit of water filling my nose; it wasn't going much further than that. When I was a kid, this just came naturally, but I've found that getting back into that mindset as an adult is really interesting. Challenging would be a better term.
There are, I'm sure, so many psychological barriers that weigh on us as adults, that just weren't there during childhood. The daily grind of adult responsibility can trigger all kinds of stress, even if it's not outright noticeable. We stash the little stresses away like old receipts, that for some reason we don't just throw in the trash. These little shreds, impacted by larger ones, accumulate like paper-mâché, and it gets harder to shake them off with each passing year.

The one thing I can say that initially distracted me today, were the tiles on the bottom of the pool. One long dark glazed line extended beneath me. I simply focused on my surroundings and less on an actual speed I was trying to travel at. The almost-panic knot in my chest loosened even more.

It really comes down to relearning how to enjoy spending time underwater. I always have; diving down as much as possible for that feeling of weightlessness. But learning how to leave my day floating on the surface, or sitting on the side of the pool, while I frolic beneath is a little journey of discovery in itself.

An Eye-Opening Experience

Friday after work, I had an "OMGODS, YAAY!" moment.
It may be silly to get this excited over the following, but I couldn't help it.
For the first time since I was a little kid, I swam with my eyes open in a pool!
A chlorine pool, and it didn't hurt!! The last time I tried opening my eyes in a swimming pool, after only opening them in clean river water, the trauma from the pain caused me to never open them in swimming pools again. It's been goggles always since.
On a whim I decided to give this one a go, since I'd heard good things about how clean it is, but not stinky with chemicals.
After taking out my contact lenses and donning my glasses to safely make it from locker room to poolside, I shoved my feet into my monofin and dove right in.
After psyching myself up a little, I just stuck my face in the water and slowly opened my eyes, expecting the hellish sensation of chlorine molesting my sensitive eyeballs.
To my surprise there was no stinging, no burning! After so many years of goggles it felt weird to swim forward with them open, but I'll just need to get used to that again ;)

I'll still do some laps in the pool at my gym, but since this pool has a deep end, I may be here more often to do some real swimming and deep diving. Perhaps even organizing mermaid meet-ups if they are ok with a bunch of mermaids frolicking.
The other awesome thing is the hours are great when they aren't closed for swim meets and competitions, which is rare. They are open until 8pm Monday through Thursday, 6pm on Fridays and weekends until 3pm.

Thank you SJSU Aquatic Center, for your crystal clear water, friendly lifeguards, amazing filtration system, low chlorine, non-crowded, Olympic-sized pool with a very deep end. Go Spartans!
San Jose State University Aquatic Center

Testing: The Fabric Version

Over the last few days I was able to track down some great swim-worthy fabrics for a first mermaid tail. At least the first since I was about 10, heh! Only this time, the materials will be much better....and there's an actual swim fin in there.

I'm still drawn toward a coral pink & silver with a hint of blue green for my dream tail. But that won't happen until I save my money for a silicone tail.
For now, I was looking for fabrics that will flow and look great in the water, without fraying into a tangled mess and have the right kind of content to hold fit in water. I found an amazing metallic gold swim spandex for the main body of the tail and to cover the monofin.
Initially I had considered using an aqua or light turquoise to pair with the gold, for the fins (dorsal, pectoral, extra fluke fins, etc). When I had brought it home, I had inadvertently laid it next to a pink shirt I have, and the colors looked fantastic together. So, that had changed my mind toward this:

The soft pink material is that weird sheer spandex knit, with a dotted pattern in pink glitter.
Depending on your monitor settings, it may look hot pink but it's actually a softer bubblegum color.
I know the glitter will come off eventually, but like I said; this is just my first test tail and the fins I cut from it wont unravel horribly.
While the fabrics are of a really good quality, they were so discounted I'm really not all that concerned about real longevity. I think the final price for the fabric alone ended up around $30.
The basic look I'm going for is a serpentine/beta fish hybrid. Something that will create a flowing line in the water.
I want to get it done before I leave for Disneyland next Thursday evening, because our hotel has a pool I can test all this out in!
xoxox