Arizona After Moonstone Wall Art Perfection 

Okay so I’m gonna keep it 100 here. This serendipitous piece of perfection occurred because I overcommitted myself. And, when looking at my July, I unknowingly had a moment of brilliance to combine me playing with Giuseppe Ribaudo‘s new Moonstone EPP Kit with me making something new for April Rhodes‘ Arizona After blog tour. And what emerged was a piece of fabric art that I never could have imagined would have been so beautiful nor that it would hold such a place in my heart.

As I do with most projects, especially English Paper Piecing, I generally decide last minute before a work trip that I want to bring something with me to sew while I’m hanging out in my hotel room for the evening. Luckily I gave myself more than my usual five minutes to find the perfect fabrics for each shape in the kit. Then while in my room in Wenatchee, WA, the first Arizona After Moonstone emerged and I was blown away.

Like I thought my fussy cutting was on point and the simplicity of my choices were right on, but I didn’t really know for sure for sure until I all came together. Then I made three more needed to find the perfect fabric to use for the massive octagon. Luckily April’s collection provided perfectly.

And when I put them all together I couldn’t stop staring and staring and staring….

And staring and staring some more. And this was a different kind of staring at a Work-in-Progress. Like this transported me and fascinated me and hit my heart strings in a way a fabric creation never had before.  And it felt complete and perfect to me and I vascilated between wall art and a pillow even though I always knew in my gut that it had to be wall art. 

So I landed on using an appliqué stitch to affix the panel to this Canyon Sunset Solid Textured Denim using 28 wt Mustard Aurifil. I also machine stitched to accent the larger diamonds and the octagon and was almost tempted to go to town with more hand work, but knew that the simplicity of the stitches with this perfect thread was all it needed. 

I knew that this needed to be framed with a matte because its presence was larger than the 16″ x 16″ square that it took up. So I chose a white 20″ x 20″ frame and a white mat with a 16″ x 16″ opening. I even used Felicia to sew the denim onto the back cardboard of the frame to make sure it never moved.

And then once it was in the frame, Helena found a prominent place for it on the wall and all was right in the world. I removed the glass because of the glare for this photo, but it will remain behind glass for all to see.

And check out those stitches…

Now I totally feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box about putting fabric art in frames, but this Arizona After Moonstone Wall Art Perfection will always hold a special place in my heart and my home. And check out my Arizona After Hexie Stripe Quilt and Swanky Snap Shirt all famous in the lookbook.

To see the other amazing projects and makers in the Heritage/Arizona After blog tour, head over to April’s site to see.