About Me/ Contact Info

The nitty gritty:
persephone@persephonelove.com - I am amazing with email and write long, candid funny responses. 😎 (Disclaimer - they will probably have a lot of swords 'n horses references)
(719) 203-7404  - I am... not good with phone calls. 😬 When you spend most of the day working with power tools where an inattentive wrong move means a stabbed or cut finger, random phone calls are suboptimal.

Me when people try to call:👇	Me when people email me:👇

Yes, I am on social media and you can get in touch with me that way too...💖
👇(These are all clickable links) 👇

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I'm a young Gen Xer (some call us Xennials 🙂) with ADHD who survived a freak dying-accident as a kid and who grew up in the 1980's on a diet of outdoor adventures and synthpop. I evolved into a punk-rocker/goth in the 90's and never grew out of my aversion to boring clothes, preferring to buck trends and blaze my own path thru the world of fashion.😎 I'm a versatile wackadoodle with a Masters degree in HR and a knack for linguistics... ¡¡Se habla español!! I'm also a crazy cat lady and passionate gardener with a patient husband and about 2,000 pounds of sweaters and denim and miscellaneous fabric waiting to be destroyed and reincarnated as new, cool stuff. I took a bit of a vow of poverty and quit a toxic corporate job to do this because I want fashion to stop hurting our environment and to be more inclusive. This is my creative protest against cheap throwaway boring clothes and against the harm that mainstream fashion does both to our environment and our mental wellbeing. 

I live in podunk Colorado Springs, Colorado and have a festive bunch of skeletons that live on my front porch year-round.😁 💀💀💀💀 (We also have child-size skeletons playing in the back yard... one has its own swing in the tree, and the other dances around one of my kinetic wind scultupes.) Oh yes, we are those people. 😉 Oh, the FUN you can have when you don't have an HOA!!! 🤣🥳

This is also apparently a really effective anti-theft setup, because I have never had a parcel stolen off my porch. Not once. 😎

I spent my childhood running through the house wrapped up in bedsheets and costumes and never really stopped. I have always been fascinated by advances in modern sewing and embroidery machines and the amazing way that fabric can be pieced back together in unique, iconoclastic and creative ways. As a child I took cotton scraps from my quilter mother, stapling them together with a proud "here momma I made you a swimsuit!". She simply took it and smiled. I now understand why she didn't want to wear it.😉 She did a good job of allowing my creativity to flourish, regardless of the results. Witness this fantastic "drive-up" easel I had. Never mind that I was completely in the way of the construction going on here at the time. 

I was a free range kid with way too much leeway. My parents were probably just grateful I didn't croak. In the late 1970's I suffered a terrible choking accident and showed up medically DOA (dead on arrival) at the hospital ER - no breathing, no heartbeat, no response to stimuli. The smart docs at the ER took advantage of a phenomenon called "infant drowning reflex", which is a survival mechanism babies/children have where the body diverts all remaining oxygen to the vital organs to try to sustain life. They threw me in a bucket of ice-water to slow the dying process and rushed me off to the operating room for emergency surgery to see if I could be saved. Apparently, there was no time for anesthesia and when they went in through an incision in my throat, I was so far gone I didn't feel a thing. After one false start getting the obstruction out and six shocks later, they managed to clear my airway and get my heart to start beating again and to keep it going. Meanwhile, the chaplain came out to be with my parents, as they did NOT expect me to make it, I'd been without oxygen statistically way too long to be anything other than a vegetable at best. Your brain starts dying at about 6 minutes with no oxygen... I had no breathing/ heartbeat for about an hour - something which for adults, has about a 100% death rate. But I am feisty, and I survived! I woke up in the ICU the next day with a souvenir of my crazy misadventure... an eye that partially changed color. This is a condition called "heterochromia". The eye doc insists this isn't possible, but my mother swears this is what happened, and in all photos before the accident, my eyes were both solid blue. So I have one blue eye, and one green/brown eye, and I am the bane of the folks at the driver's license bureau when they ask for my eye color. 

I was a handful post-accident. They kept me in an oxygen tent in the ICU which my mother warned them was flimsy but they assured her it would be fine. The next day, it was covered in tape where I had poked holes in it. My speech/learning fell a little bit behind for a few months and both my short and long-term memory functions really took a beating, and later on in school they did all sorts of testing on me trying to figure me out (schools didn't really know what ADHD was back then - this was 1978 and they didn't have MRI technology at the time of my accident so they couldn't "see" what it did to my brain) but my love of exploration never waned. Here I am one month post-accident making friends with a daffodil, tracheotomy cleverly hidden by the dress:

I was given a great deal of autonomy in picking my own clothes as well. Witness this horribly fashionable pink sweater and red corduroy pants with the smart, waterproof rubber boots. I was practical too, as when I realized the raft was sinking a bit, I pushed my much heavier older brother off in order to restore buoyancy. Don't worry, he didn't drown. Boy he was mad at me though, and justifiably so. 😏 

He forgave me though, because when I was in elementary school my brother told everyone that I was a genius (and despite my early mishap I sort of am - I took SATs in 8th grade as part of a gifted/talented program and scored almost well enough to get into college). How sweet that he thought so highly of me! 🥰 Despite unknowingly having ADHD and being prone to distraction, my superpower is that I have hyper-focus when it's something I'm passionate about. I gobbled up every book on Greek mythology I could get my hands on, and when my brother and his friends had a Greek mythology unit in 6th grade, they were all getting homework help from my little 3rd-grade self. 😎

Guess who had this book practically memorized? 👇 😉

Indeed, that's where the name Persephone (per-SEF-uh-nee) came from. Lovely Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the Goddess of the Harvest and the world's original gardener, but she was also the wife of Hades, Lord of the Underworld for 6 months out of every year (thus according to the Greeks, the "reason for the seasons".) My mother was also a fantastic and passionate gardener (a habit I picked up from her) and I never really grew out of my teenage "noire" period. There are just so many parallels, the name was a perfect fit for my seamstress adventures. I'm a goth chick, but I'm also all about rainbows 'n nature 'n sparkles. I have a horribly morbid sense of humor (that family of plastic skeletons lives on my front porch year round) but I am about the most vivacious person ever. The duality of Persephone as both the Queen of the Underworld as well as the Goddess of Spring... totally fits me. 😎

As a teen, my parents gave me $200 for my "clothing budget" (that was good money back in the 90's) which I foolishly went to the mall and came away with two sweaters, two shirts and two pairs of pants which I then had to wear the entire year. 7th grade is truly the lowest form of life. By 8th grade, a friend told me about the local thrift store, and my love of re-using clothes was born. We were still somewhat post-80's, and I had the pouf of curled and hair-sprayed bangs (which my mother called... "the rooster"). While I absolutely loathe the body-shaming that was directed at me by family and a few peers (really there is NO excuse for that), my hairstyle was a choice and is absolutely fair game and yes, it does kinda resemble the thing on top of a rooster's head. 😂

By 9th grade, both hair and clothing were modified even more. I was (and still am) a clothing-destroyer. I had this jean jacket that friends of mine helped me cut out the underside of the sleeves to make these sort of bat-wing sleeve extensions, I painted designs on the back and had a chain hanging off the left arm. It was unique and no one else at my school had anything like it. I also had a trench coat with rubber skeletons, rows upon rows of safety pins and googley-eyeballs but sadly, no photos of this crazy creation exist. My jean jacket was immortalized in my school yearbook though, so here it is, thanks to the fact that my husband and I were junior high classmates and he kept his yearbooks (I lose stuff). Also if you are/were a punk goth chick like I was, yes, you can totally wear Birkenstocks as part of a proper goth/punk wardrobe. I had the Birkenstocks Athens sandals and OMG I wore those things everywhere. With socks of course, because socks with sandals is totally a Colorado thing.

(9th grade blackmail photo) 

I was always frustrated because I went to a school where all the rich kids had expensive brand-name clothes and I always thought that cheaply made but expensive brand-name clothes were just silly.. and even the gothic kids at school had wealthy parents that bought them all the fancy stuff from Fashion Disaster up in Denver. Not me. I had to get creative, as punk had to be on the cheap. Also remember the late 90's were like... pre-internet when dinosaurs still walked the earth, so there was no "buy this off the internet" way of augmenting your style. Yay Goodwill! Not many more photos exist of my crazy teenage fashion creations, but the cutoff jean shorts here, I painted eye of Horus emblems on the front in sparkling fabric paint, wore them over thick leggings (because seriously, who wants cold legs) and topped it off with a punk T-shirt and tuxedo jacket. It really doesn't matter what you wear. If it's comfortable, and you feel good in it, IMHO you look good in it. (🔥🔥🔥Seriously though... burn all stiletto heels in a dumpster fire!🔥🔥🔥🔥) Me and your podiatrist are totally on the same page about this. Uncomfortable shoes are BAD for you.

Even later in life, Goodwill was a house 'o treasures. I proudly got my wedding dress there for $60.00 (it was 30% off that day - score!) and not a pearl was missing, and it is apparently a $1,500.00 gown. It is amazing what people let go of. No garment that someone in the world put so much work into, should go in the landfill. (And yes, I'm not kidding... my husband and I really were junior high classmates.. in fact he asked me out back then and I said no. Then 16+ years later, I changed my mind and said yes, and here we are.) 

 

Truly the local thrift store is my idea of the utterly cool destination. When I was finally able to take my children to Hawaii on vacation after many years, we had to go visit the Goodwill in Hilo. I was disappointed but understanding about the lack of sweaters there and the staff looked at me like I was nuts when my kids got a photo of their goofball mother. Leave it to me to ignore the beaches and go to the local Goodwill instead. 😜

Even my dentist is no longer surprised by my desire for comfort and lack of concern for conventional fashion. Hey... when you know you're gonna be there more than a couple hours, might as well get comfortable.😎

Indeed, everything I sew now has to be comfortable. I like wool/cashmere because it's so forgiving. Even with the denim goodies I make, I try to find a way to make things that are flexible and forgiving. I am the famous "sweater lady" on the ARC thrift store's Facebook page. My daughter cheerfully calls this my... "death pile"... which is actually very fitting, considering the Persephone reference...oooo look at all those colors! Is that not the most colorful death pile you've ever seen??🤩🌈👇 )

 

I love trying to help take care of Mother Earth. When I'm not sewing, I'm usually out rescuing bees from rainstorms and trying to add to my "bee buffet" (some folks call it a garden). Like a proper earth-loving wackadoodle, I talk to the pollinators in my yard. I have no shame.😎 I have never lost the enthusiasm for nature's creatures that I had as a child. It stuck with me. My husband is used to me.. I'm the person that stops and picks up worms off sidewalks after a rainstorm and tucks them back in the grass so they don't drown or dry out. 

This sweet little bumble bee 🐝was caught out in a rainstorm one summer and when I found her in the morning, she was cold and completely exhausted (as well as vulnerable to predators). I warmed up some honey and thinned it with sugar-water, put some on a cotton swab and she grabbed onto that cotton swab like her life depended on it, eagerly slurping up the emergency energy, resting for a moment, and then fanning her wings to finish drying off and then looking at me for a moment before flying home to her family. It was such a magical experience. 😍🥰

(Very, very sad, cold and tired Bumble Bee)

I make friends with critters too. It's amazing the little friends you find when you take a moment to take it all in. This little baby Western Fence Lizard visited my patio and when I picked him up, I was gentle enough that he was content to bask in the sun together. He got so comfortable sitting on me, I had to nudge him to get him to reclaim his freedom. 🥰🦎

In every area of my life, I try not to waste things and to give Mother Nature the proper respect she deserves. All throughout the warm season I'm turning my compost pile and playing in the dirt. Playing in the dirt is good for the soul, it really is. Everyone should wallow in a dirt pile at least once, so that we appreciate the miracle of the soil, which helps grow the food that we eat. 

My little 1/3 acre lot has absolutely no lawn (lawns are just water-hogs that provide nothing of value to our pollinator friends) and it is all xeriscaped and planted to provide food for people, and pollen/nectar-producing plants for pollinators. I'm nurturing several varieties of Asclepias Tuberosa (Milkweed), which is the host plant for endangered Monarch butterfly caterpillars. 🦋 🥰

2023 update: Lookie, lookie, we had Monarchs visit us this year!!!!

We tend to tell ourselves that our actions only make small ripples, but I promise you, if enough people make small changes, it makes a BIG difference. 

I do not miss my lawn (or my lawnmower) and the warm seasons are wonderful when shared with all manner of bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Plant flowers... and you get free little friends! Truly, the Earth does not belong to us - we belong to the Earth... and we must share with its other inhabitants. The more harmonious our relationship with our planet, the healthier we are, mind, body and soul. I yearn for a less toxic world with more careful consumption, more recycling and re-using the way nature intended. If you're reading this, I hope you share my hopes and excitement for a more sustainable world. Mindless, boring over-consumption of cheap disposable goods hurts us on so many levels. There is a better way. Let me get you hooked on the idea of a more sustainable world and lots of ways we can get there. I quit a toxic, horrible health-destroying soul-sucking job to be able to do this, and I do not do this for the money.😇

I wrote an epic "I QUIT" poem/post on Facebook and turned in my resignation to finish grad school without having to fight my former employer (employer name withheld to protect the guilty but if you're that curious, here I am on LinkedIn.) for the one hour weekly that they wouldn't let me flex my schedule to pursue a degree that I would have put to good use for them.🙄 Their loss...😎 I'm brilliant and when allowed to be my authentic self, I tend to win awards at 'normal' jobs for my skills 'n dedication... but micromanagement in a toxic corporate culture is like Death Valley and I am an Orchid, I know where I thrive and where I belong.  Huge financial sacrifices were made to enable me to have that choice but it was so very much worth it. There is NO substitute for good physical and mental health. 😊 In every area of our lives, there's always a way to rethink and re-imagine things to make them better... and sometimes that journey just starts from within.  🥰

I always enjoyed altering my own clothes and putting together statement pieces but I also care about the environment and the lives which "fast fashion" is busy destroying, and this is my small one-person effort to nudge the fashion industry towards something better. This is my creative protest against cheap, throwaway clothes. I've got a better alternative, made with lots of care and love. Some of my pieces may be similar yes, but no two are ever exactly alike... so whatever treasure you find here, you will not run into others wearing the same thing. My goodies and I are unique (even my Katwise-inspired goodies are vastly different from the rest of the Katwise crowd), and I want to help you find inspiration, purpose, and joy. 🥰 If you buy from me, know that everything I make is sewn with neurotic attention to artistic and technical detail, incredible passion and enthusiasm for constant improvement and mastery, a desire for fashion to be more inclusive, and all my dreams and hopes of a better world for all of us.

Never ever settle for "normal". Don't be normal, that's so boring.... Be weird, be different, be unforgettable... be extraordinary. 😎