When Sharlene Wiseman read online that the Kennedy Center was accepting applications for its Lunar Quilt Block Challenge, she went for the moon and used her quilting skills to design a block and submit it to the Center.
And when she got a letter back saying her quilting block had been accepted as West Virginia’s contribution to the quilt, she was over the moon.
The Lunar Quilt contest is a nod to NASA’s Artemis Project, which aims to return humans to the moon and establish a sustainable presence on the lunar surface. The quilt will consist of 12-by-12-inch blocks — one from each state — and will be designed by astronaut and textile artist Karen Nyberg. The quilt will be exhibited during the “Earth to Space: Arts Breaking the Sky†festival at the Kennedy Center from March 28 to April 13. The festival coincides with Women’s History Month in March and also celebrates the contributions of women in space.
Wiseman’s block features a full moon against a dark blue background, a rocket ship, an Almost Heaven West Virginia appliqué, and a colorful rendering of the New River Gorge Bridge. She worked on it, on and off, for a week.
The decisions and materials that went into the design were deeply personal. “I just used what I had at the house. For the moon I used a piece of fabric from a shirt that belonged to my son, and the rocket was made from a handkerchief that belonged to my husband’s aunt,†Wiseman said.
Her son was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2010. They lost the aunt to cancer in 2024.
Wiseman is 64 and lives on a farm at Liberty, where they raise Simmental cattle, a Swiss breed valued for both beef and dairy. She spent 20 years as a kindergarten aid in Putnam County schools. She took her first quilting class around 2004. “I had seen quilts made by family members and was always amazed at the talent they had,†she said.
She took to the hobby like a needle to thread and has been quilting ever since. “That was just the beginning,†she said. “I’ve learned different quilting techniques and taken more classes over the years. Quilting requires a lot of planning — choosing patterns, fabric, rulers, thread — it all takes time and patience.†During this time, she’s made everything from highly detailed quilts to baby quilts, many given away as gifts.
She finds Karen Nyberg to be an inspiration and is looking forward to meeting the former astronaut during the festival. Now retired from NASA, Nyberg remains as passionate about textiles as she is about space. In 2013, she became the first human to sew and quilt in orbit.
This occurred on her second spaceflight, when Nyberg lived and worked at the International Space Station (ISS) for 166 days. During her time there she stitched a square star-themed quilt block. She filmed a video on board the ISS that showed how she met the challenges of quilting in a weightless environment. That quilt block is now part of a king-size Astronomical Quilt that hangs at the Briscoe Center for History at the University of Texas.
Wiseman also explores other creative endeavors. She wrote a children’s book, “Ellie Comes to Town,†about the adventures of Ellie the Turkey who came to Eleanor and decided to make it her home. It’s based on a real-life turkey who unexpectedly wandered into the town a few years ago and became a community sensation. No one knows where the turkey came from, but it was comfortable around people and folks shared pictures of it on social media.
In the book, Wiseman meshes the turkey with the history of Eleanor. “I crisscrossed from the turkey to Eleanor Roosevelt, and added the twist about the First Lady coming to town back in the 1930s to visit the homestead farms. She brought jobs and people to the area, which led to the town being named after her.â€
The book is illustrated by Ellen Mills Pauley, and is available at Taylor Books in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä and at Tamarack.
On her quilt block application to the Kennedy Center, Wiseman was asked to write a 300-word essay on what inspired her. In her essay she refers to her grandmother and other family members being “old-time quilters†that believed in “using what you have.†She concluded her answer with these words:
“... I love West Virginia and I love quilting, and I love the advances and changes that have been made here in the United States over the past years. I am looking forward to all the new adventures NASA will be doing to further our knowledge for the future.â€
