Sweet Honesty -- Packaging

Once again, I'm late. Just after the challenge came out, I got the flu. My niece suggested several different perfume packages. After looking at several of them, I realized that for the most part, fragrance packaging uses a limited number of colors, usually with black and gold.

With the exception of fragrances which are designated "sporty" or exciting (viz Red Door and a few others) most of them are suggesting elegance and beauty and therefore have these restricted color palettes.

I went to my pantry cupboard and the only thing I could find which really said "BUY ME!" was a can of "fire roasted tomatoes" which were all natural. Therefore it was in tones of reds, with gold, black and green. I thought about doing this, but kept on going back to the image at left--an advertisement for Annick Goutal's Eau de Parfum "Eau de Hadrian" which is advertised here on Anthropologie's website.


I had been thinking about doing something with the shape of a green vase I had and this sort of just sent me right into that. The piece measures 24 5/8" high x 11" wide. I used gray Kona cotton with an overlay of a chain-stitch embroidered polyester sheer. The "tablecloth" is a piece of polyester lace in a light ecru.

The plant for the still life requirement is supposed to be a branch of
Lunaria annua which is commonly known as "honesty", "money plant," "Silver dollar plant", "Bolbonac", and "moonwort." The seed pods on this plant are transluscent silver once they have slipped their husks. I have represented them with fused layers of irredescent polyester sheer lame with the whiter ones being a piece of the lame fused to a piece of white satin before fusing it to the background. I satin stitched the stems in gold metallic thread.

The vase is a polyester damask.

I quilted the background "swirls" following right along the edge. However, I originally thought I would outline the swirls in gold. I did the interior of the piece and wasn't sure I liked it so I switched to grey for the rest of it. The seedpods of the luminaria are loosely outlined in gold mettalic thread as well.

I had originally intended a larger amount of open area (blank space) at the top of the piece...but I am afraid that the flu I was struck with on Dec. 27 made me really dopey as to what I was doing. Once I started it, I realized that I didn't cut a large enough piece to accomodate the hand basted vase and the plant....ooops!

I faced the quilt rather than using a traditional binding in gray (which I considered)....and I'm still not good at it. Critiques are gladly welcomed.

Lisa Broberg Quintana (Michigoose)