G[r]eek Alphabet : P is for Pomegranate and Persephone

I wasn't entirely convinced by this design when I came to make this one. It was neat but a bit quiet and uncomplex  after some of the designs I've made.

I did debate returning to my original plan with the pomegranate below the P and Persephone's dress as she runs away but I didn't like it. I didn't want to mess up the P and turn it into a B.

As always I dithered over the colour of the letter because I couldn't use a reddish colour due to the reds in the pomegranate and I didn't want too pale a colour. None of my blues seemed appropriate either.

This photo is one I took to be able to think more on the colour of the letter while at work creating Odin.

The problem with the green I decided to use is it is technically for putting curtain hooks on curtains which means it's thick and lumpy and twice the width I wanted meaning I had to double it over to use it. I sewed the ribbon for the outside of the pomegranate to the inside flesh colour fabric and then sewed the P down quite fast as I couldn't use pins very easily on such a thick wedge of material.

So then I was on to the seeds and the spaces where seeds had been. It worked out quite well that this was going to be done over the top in embroidery because I hadn't managed to keep the white very flat while sewing down the P. I only have so many fingers. I had decided that the seeds would be made out of large decorative knots and the spaces of where seeds used to be would be small sewn stitches in circles.

I was worried that the knots would take a long time and had doubled up the thread to make extra quick large knots. It meant I went through thread fast but the knots actually went pretty quickly as did the empty places where seeds had been.

 The final design decision was to add an extra bit of pink around the end of the P to add some definition to the letter.

Mythology spot

So what has a pomegranate got to do with Persephone? This is a classic abduction story from Greek mythology. Hades kidnaps Persephone and makes her his Queen. Her mother Demeter hunts for him and begs Zeus to get her daughter back. Persephone pines for the above world and refuses to eat anything in the underworld. When Zeus intervenes to get her back Hades says she can go back if she hasn't eaten anything....Persephone says she hasn't but the gardener says she has - she has eaten half the seeds of a pomegranate. However Hades still lets her go back but only for half the year. Or something along those lines. Thus the seasons are born. It's summer and spring when she comes above ground and autumn and winter when she is in the underworld as Demeter - a harvest goddess is sad.

Other fun Persephone facts - in some source(s) she is said to be the creator of human life instead of Prometheus, and sometimes she is said not to be Demeter's daughter but Zeus and Styx (the River that takes you to the underworld).

All this and more from the Theoi article on Persephone : Greek queen of the underworld and spring

Crazy factoid about me and Pomegranates

I had never eaten pomegranate until about 5 years ago. As a child I read this myth and wondered why she was eating the seeds and not the fruit. Having eaten one, mystery solved! That's what you eat in a pomegranate!!