I designed this sweater!
It is named for the Greek goddess Persephone.
I had such a great time knitting this piece!

Photos by Bill Bishop (aside from the last 3 photos)

Persephone’s story (or part of it) goes like this:
Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. Hades, the king of the underworld, was in love with Persephone, and wanted her to be his queen. One day, while Persephone was picking flowers, Hades burst through the ground, and abducted Persephone, dragging her down to the underworld. A panicked Demeter searched the world for her daughter, and refused to make the soil fertile while she was in pursuit. While the crops shriveled and the people began to starve on Earth, in the underworld, Persephone was also starving. She learned early in her life that it was a rule of the Fates that anyone who ate or drank while in the underworld would be forbidden to leave.
Zeus, annoyed by the cries of hunger from the people on Earth, decided that he would force Hades to return the young goddess to her mother, so that the crops would flourish once again. He sent Hermes (god of transitions and boundaries-- able to move between the realms of the living and the dead) to bring Persephone home to Demeter.
However, when Hermes found Persephone, Hades had tricked her into eating a few pomegranate seeds. As a result, Persephone could only return to her mother for a part of the year, and for the remainder, she was forced to rule the underworld as Hades’s queen. While Persephone is away, Demeter lets the world descend into barren winters, and allows the ground to be fruitful once Persephone is returned each year.