The Lotus Frog Saga

My first business in New Hampshire was Toad Hollow Jewelry, named after my lovely old run-down house and barn which sits on the edge of wetlands. The property was named by a former owner who forged letters like one forges horse shoes and hung them over the barn door. Today the sign on the barn says "Anita's Beads" but I still keep renewing the "Toad Hollow" business every year and use it for my jewelry and minerals. I have the original letters stored away in a box.

Some 15 years ago I created a little logo from a lotus flower, turning it into a frog. So today I decided to try making it into a design for fabric. I did not do a very good job of it for a number of reasons. I am coming down from a very manic, creative period. I don't think I have posted here so frequently in a long time. An effortless stream of fabric designs have been flowing, and I've been building up Spoonflower swatch samplers and putting stuff on my Tumblr.

The Tumblr site has been attracting amazing attention. First, things were getting reblogged which is a compliment. Then Tumblr contacted me to become part of their Artist Spotlight. In just one day I have gone from 22 followers to 93 which is absolutely amazing.

So, on top of being tired (and now depressed) from staying up late on the computer Photoshopping, I'm afraid that any new thing I put up now will not measure up to the spectacular run I had going. But I forced myself today to keep working on the lotus frog because I like it, because it has personal significance, and because I needed to distract myself from the workers who were here all day fixing my falling-down porch and my rotting kitchen wall. I will refrain from going into details about that here. You can read about it on my Temporary Blog when I write about it there.

Before I came up with the Lotus Daisy, I did just a straight repeat in alternating colors like a checkerboard.

It's kind of boring but might be cute at the right scale if I can get the colors right. But the good thing that came out of the exercise was that I finally figured out how to make a triangle in Photoshop. I'm proud of myself over that little victory in logical thinking!

You can bet there will be more triangle designs coming along in the near future!