Sharon K. Naegele Eshlaman

MI49016-054

Sharon K. Naegele Eshlaman

Joyce Rupp

2011-08-31

Susan Salser

Battle Creek, Michigan

Eleanor Wilkinson

Joyce Rupp (JR): This is Joyce Rupp. This interview is being conducted for the South Central Michigan QSOS, a project for The Alliance for American Quilts. Today I am interviewing Sharon K. Naegele Eshlaman at the Westlake Presbyterian Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. Today is August 31, 2011, and the time is 10:42 [a.m.]. Thanks for being with me today, Sharon.

Sharon K. Naegele Eshlaman (SE): Thanks for having me.

JR: Tell me about the quilt that you brought today.

SE: It's a quilt I made some years ago, probably around the year 2000. I was always interested in stars. It came out of a magazine, which I've since discarded, can't tell you what year, what designer, really anything about it. I love plaids and stars, so I chose that pattern.

JR: Why did you choose this quilt to bring to the interview?

SE: I really do not have a favorite, but because I won an award at Cal-Co quilting guild [Cal-Co Quilters' Guild.] some years ago I thought that's the one I should bring.

JR: What do you think someone viewing your quilt might conclude about you?

SE: It's Americana. I love my country. I love simplicity and it speaks country to me, country life.

JR: How do you use this quilt?

SE: I use it on my couch for show. I do not put it on a bed. I don't want it to get worn.

JR: Do you have any other plans for this quilt?

SE: No, I'm probably just going to save it and hand it down to one of my children when I pass on.

JR: Tell me about your interest in quilt making.

SE: As a young child I always made my own clothing. So sewing was a natural. As I got married, and it was at a young age, probably 19-20 years old, I wanted something other than clothing to make, as I was then a stay-at-home mom. I got interested in quilting just through a magazine.

JR: What age did you, then, start quilt making?

SE: I think my first attempt I was probably about 28 years old, had young children and there was a quilt class at our local school, and I signed up for it and that was the very first quilt I made. Due to the fact that I had young children, after I made that quilt, I stopped for a few years.

JR: Time kind of got away from you, huh?

SE: It did. Yes.

JR: How many hours a week do you think you quilt now?

SE: It depends, if I'm making a project, a quilt or a wall hanging, I'll probably work three or four days straight on it, could be eight, nine hours a day. Once I sit down, I usually don't get up.

JR: Do you have a first quilt memory?

SE: The first quilt I made at the class at the local high school, the gentleman, I don't remember his name, started with showing us how to draft our own blocks. I remember picking a star in the god-awful colors of green and orange. I no longer have that quilt. [laughs.]

JR: Are there other quiltmakers among your family or friends? Please tell me about them.

SE: My mother. She also belongs to the same groups that I do. Her name is Dorothy Naegele, and she joined the group first and as soon as I heard what she was doing I started tagging along.

JR: How does quilt making impact your family?

SE: They get a lot of nice quilts, a lot of rewards from my illness here. My grandkids, my kids have each several quilts that I've made. A lot of nice Christmas gifts, birthday gifts and just because I love you and I want you to have it.

JR: Tell me if you've ever used quilts to get through a difficult time.

SE: I did a lot of quilting when I was at work. I was a supervisor for 26 years and some days were very stressful. The weekends were spent quilting and that was my release.

JR: Therapy, some people call it.

SE: Very much so.

JR: Can you think of any amusing experiences that have occurred from your quilting? One of the things that comes to mind is that you spent a lot of retreats down in Shipshewana [Indiana.] and one of the things that people always look forward to is your box of goodies outside your door. Can you think of any cute experiences from that?

SE: Well, you know, as soon as you put the box of goodies outside your door it's like vultures running up the hall. Everybody's grabbing all your goodies and they take it back to their room and they make something beautiful out of it and then you look at their project and you say, 'Why didn't I think of that?'

JR: What do you find pleasing about quilt making?

SE: I like working with the pattern, the colors, the spot that I have in mind for the quilt or wall hanging. I think the planning is what's fun.

JR: Are there aspects of quilt making that you do not enjoy?

SE: I enjoy it all, actually, right down to the last stitch on the binding. I find it all relaxing and enjoyable.

JR: What art or quilt groups do you or have you belonged to?

SE: Cal-Co Quilters' Guild for a great number of years. I belong to Log Cabin Quilters for five or six years, now. The Ladies of the Lake quilting circle for probably close to twenty years and a couple of groups down in Shipshewana, Indiana, one of them through Lolly's Fabric stores, the Moda group that meets once a month, and then they also have another new group that meets, it's called Pathways to Patchwork. That meets once a month.

JR: Have advances in technology influenced your work? If so, how?

SE: When I first started, of course, you looked through magazines or bought patterns at the store. Now, with computers you spend endless hours searching websites all over the United States and Canada, even Europe if you want to, looking for patterns and kits and ideas, looking up quiltmakers, designers, checking on fabric companies, printing patterns off the Internet, ordering supplies and fabrics. It's just endless.

JR: What are your favorite techniques and materials to use?

SE: Piecing, I think, is what I enjoy the most. For years I thought I couldn't become an appliqueer and I'm now finding that I'm really enjoying machine appliqué.

JR: How about different fabrics, what is your preference?

SE: I always tend toward the dark colors, the reds, the navies, the browns, the blacks, the golds. I am now getting out of my box, loving the Amy Butler things of that nature, Kaffe Fassett. I always pretty much stuck with Civil War. Now I'm getting into batiks.

JR: You're branching out.

SE: I'm branching out and my pattern choices are changing with material choices.

JR: Tell me how you balance you time.

SE: Number one is quilting. I work that around my grandchildren, but I've always got a quilt or a project in mind, so I balance that around housework, things of that nature. It seems to be my number-one priority. It's my hobby. It's really become my life.

JR: You're possessed.

SE: Yes, I am. [laughs.]

JR: How do you design your quilts? Do you have a design wall?

SE: I don't, but the way my sewing room is laid up, my bedroom is connected to my sewing room by one large door opening so I lay everything out on my bed.

JR: What do you think makes a great quilt?

SE: I think it's different for everybody. What you like in a quilt might not be what everyone else likes in a quilt, so I think it speaks to the person making it and the person who enjoys that style or that fabric or that pattern. I think it's something different for everybody.

JR: Is there something that draws you artistically to a particular quilt?

SE: First it's probably the color, if it's pastels or if it's dark colors. It would be the pattern. I tend to go through stages but mainly it's traditional type quilts. I love appliqué quilts and I generally tend to go with the very traditional.

JR: What do you think makes a quilt appropriate for a museum or a special collection?

SE: I think it could be anything, the pattern, the color or the technique, the quilting, how it speaks, how it jumps out to the public. There's many versions and many designs. You know when you walk by, and it pops out at you.

JR: What makes a great quiltmaker?

SE: I think somebody who's afraid not to try any new techniques, new colors, new patterns, somebody who wants to step out of the box.

JR: How about skill? All their corners match.

SE: Their points match, their corners match, the choice of their fabric. Color, the way they combine colors. If the pattern and the color flows through the quilt.

JR: Are you drawn to any particular artist or designer, their work?

SE: Right now, I'm really enjoying Pat Sloan and I really enjoy doing Kim Diehl's projects. I enjoy Edyta Sitar's work with batiks and combining batiks with Civil War and all the other different fabrics. She doesn't stick to just one kind of fabric. I enjoy the way she takes triangles and makes them into so many different patterns. Those are probably right now my three choices, and that changes with times.

JR: Pat Sloan, Edyta, and Kim Diehl.

SE: Kim Diehl, yes.

JR: How do you feel about machine quilting versus hand quilting versus longarm quilting? And do you do any of those?

SE: I do machine quilting on very small pieces. I find it very stressful, hard on the body--

JR: To do larger pieces?

SE: To do larger pieces and I think it takes a lot of practice. I'm not always willing to put that much time into something. I've always wanted it to be perfect the first time around and, well, no, it doesn't happen that way. I send most of my stuff out to longarm quilters simply because they go to my children or my grandkids and being children, they wash the quilts so much. I want them to hold up. I do have a few hand quilted pieces and I love them, but if I hand quilt something it prevents me from the next project. I'm always in a hurry to get on the next project so it's easier to send it out to a long arm quilt and hit the store for another project.

JR: This might be redundant, but why is quilt making important to your life?

SE: It's a stress reliever. It's what I do. It's what I think about eight hours a day, if I'm awake. I wake up thinking about a quilt.

JR: It's something you can create with your hands?

SE: With your hands you create, with your mind. It's basically you even though you might copy somebody's pattern you're putting your color choices. It's your personality in that project that's coming out.

JR: In what ways do you think your quilts reflect your community or your region?

SE: Well, as far as the Americana that I really enjoy, the stars, with the wars in the world now and our people coming back from overseas, I think it relates to that. I like appliqué floral quilts, thinking of my garden, that I occasionally tear myself away from quilting to work on. I work with a lot of homespuns and basically, I'm just a down-to-earth girl. I've got my chickens and my garden, and I think my quilts kind of show that's the type of person I am.

JR: What do you think about the importance of quilts in American life?

SE: It tells our history, where we've been, where we've come. Where we were going. I don't think there's anything more fascinating than looking a quilts and seeing quilts from a hundred years ago, what they were thinking of.

JR: You mentioned before the interview started that you have some antique quilts. Why don't you describe why you chose those?

SE: Probably what first caught my eye was the color and then the design. They're all traditional designs. And that's where I see the pleasure. I love the traditional designs first and foremost.

JR: In what ways do you think quilts have special meaning for women's history in America? [twelve second pause.] One of the things that I have read of late, because we're going through the anniversary of the Civil War, is how women made so many quilts for our soldiers during the Civil War and that was the way they did their part. How do you think quilts can be preserved for the future?

SE: I feel they should be handed down to family members and friends with documentation on them, who made them, the pattern, the year and care instructions for the recipient so they can save them and pass them down from year to year.

JR: What do you think is the biggest challenge confronting quiltmakers today?

SE: For me it's finding all the time I need to make all the things I need to make before I die. [laughs.]

JR: Can you think of anything that we haven't covered today that you would like to include in our interview?

SE: I think one of the things that quilt making has done for me, besides my own personal satisfaction of completing a project and pleasing myself, because that's what I do first myself. I please myself. I'm not in it to, necessarily, to please others. I want to be proud of my end project.

JR: Any other thoughts on, maybe things that we haven't covered today that you want to convey?

SE: Probably first, and foremost, is the people I've met. I have met so many fantastic people, so many great friendships, people new, people old, people that we have lost in our group and in our life, people we love and enjoy spending our time with.

JR: Thank you, Sharon, for being part of our Q.S.O.S. project. It is now 11 o'clock.