February 2026
February Program: Gail Abbey – Save Your Body and Do What you Love
Tuesday, February 17, 2026: 7:00 p.m. – In Person
Gail Abbey, a practicing occupational therapist, will present her lecture to help us stay safe and productive! Topics will include how to set up a safe and functional workspace for quilting tasks, injury prevention techniques, and the benefits of stretching.
Attendees will learn about the effects of aging on the body, the importance of posture and body mechanics, common upper extremity repetitive stress injuries, and specific pre and post quilting exercises to help prevent discomfort. This will be an interactive presentation and questions are always encouraged!
February Workshop: Fun With Rope!
Wednesday, February 18, 2026: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Our very own Celia Stratman will be teaching us how to make rope bowls. The goal of this three-hour workshop is to give you the tools and techniques to complete a rope bowl and take home a finished product! Rope bowls can be used to store so many things: spare change, jewelry, car keys, candy, pens, and binding clips - the list is endless!
Celia will supply the rope. Once you learn the techniques that she will teach, you will be ready to explore more possibilities on your own if you wish.
Note: this workshop is currently filled. If you’d like to be put on a waiting list, please email Andrea Krier.
March Program – Brown Bag Goes Green!
Tuesday, March 17, 2026: 6:00 p.m. – In Person
The Brown Bag Hustle is Back! Love fabric? Love a good bargain? Join us for one of our most fun and popular events of the year!
Our Brown Bag Hustle is part raffle, part auction, part treasure hunt, and 100% crafty fun. Quilting fabric, notions, books, tools, and other creative goodies are donated by guild members and our local community, then sorted and displayed for auction or brown bag raffles. There will also be a “cash and carry” area filled with books, patterns and fabrics sorted by color.
How It Works:
Purchase raffle tickets at the event - 6 for $5; 15 for $10; 20 for $15; 30 for $20
Drop tickets into the brown bags for the goodies you’re hoping to win.
A winning ticket is drawn from each brown bag and if it’s yours, you collect your treasures and bring them home with you!
What To Bring:
Guests – there is no fee for guest attendance. Bring a guest – get a gift!
Credit Cards, Cash & Checks!
Donations! Donations! Donations! Clean out your sewing room and bring your donations starting at 5:00 p.m. We gladly accept quilting fabric, supplies, unfinished projects, books, sewing equipment, and all things sewing-related that you no longer need but are of good quality and worthy to pass on. Reach out to us if you would like to donate but cannot attend the event
Large shopping bags or laundry basket to transport your winnings!
Wear green! The leprechauns will be dancing to the Bee Gees! If you have any questions, contact Donna Fitzgerald.
President’s News
The year 2026 is starting out cold, but we have our quilting to keep us warm! Many of us enjoyed another quilt retreat in January. I think what I enjoy the most is the chatter and how one idea leads to another. There has been some talk about having t-shirts made with the Village Quilters logo on the front and fun sayings on the back. Carrol Stovold is willing to work on this. At the retreat one saying that we were having fun with is “We’re not a regular guild, We're a cool guild”. What do you think? Do you agree? Stay tuned - we might have some fun Village Quilters t-shirts available in the future.
We have a date set with The Sheridan at Green Oaks on February 28th to show some quilts. Judy Hillebrand and I will be asking for some of our members to bring a few of their quilts on that day to do a show and tell like we do in our monthly meetings. Please consider joining us! Let Judy or Sharon know if you want to participate in this opportunity to share our love of quilting.
Sharon Pierluissi, President
Friendly Service Project
The February service block is a bit more complicated than some of the others, but don't be daunted! This is the time to try something new - and it's only 8" so not a huge undertaking. We’re making a sailboat, pieced with a few half-square triangles. The full directions are available on the Service page.
Time to turn in your January ducks as well - wasn't that nice of me to give you TWO months to create your cute ducks?! And, should you be inspired, we desperately need a few flower basket blocks (from last August) to get a quilt top made.
Erica Jarrett, Service Chair
Members Meeting Members
Nancy Smith and I figured out we both attended the 1991 Village Quilters Quilt show, held at St James Church, and joined the guild soon after. The guild restricted membership to 65 soon thereafter, and we were thrilled to make it in before the cutoff. Like many of us, Nancy started sewing as a young girl, and by 8th grade was making her own clothing. Her father, the town doctor, had an account at the local dry goods shop in her rural home town, Clayton, Illinois. Nancy and her 2 sisters would ride their bikes to the store, purchase fabrics on dad’s account and head home to sew new outfits! Nancy joked that she did all the ‘entry drug’ projects: cross stitch, needle point and embroidery before turning to quilting.
Nancy has an enviable quantity of fabrics to select from, acquired over many years of visiting the Paducah quilt show with her sister and mom (who sadly have both passed) and many friends. Having inherited her sister’s entire sewing room, she did feel a tad overwhelmed, but was fortunate to be able to set up a spare room for fabric storage.
Her original stash is (mostly) stored in a butler’s pantry, beautifully sorted by color! Her favorite quilt style is ‘scrap quilt’ and she loves to incorporate fabrics from her stash. She currently is working on a few Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts, and is always willing to quilt service quilts on her Gammill long arm machine, set up in a bedroom she has taken over as a sewing room.
Being a full time working mom of two daughters, of course Nancy volunteered for many positions in Village Quilters, starting with show set up with Kate Klein for the 1995 show held at St. James Church. She then headed up the 1997 quilt show with Erika Eddy, held at Gorton Community Center – a show we jokingly refer to as ‘the piano quilt show’ due to one member becoming distressed because her quilt was displayed draped over a piano as there was no more room to hang quilts! We definitely needed a bigger space.
By the time Nancy became guild president in 2002, the guild had thankfully done away with the membership restriction. In addition she has been Program Chair, headed up Service and Birthday Blocks, as well as chaired a number of more recent quilt shows. And she will be co-chairing the 2027 quilt show! Sign up soon for all those show committees, ladies, this will be a FUN quilt show!
Erica Jarrett
Spring Retreat - April 17-19
Our retreat is held from Friday, 8:00 a.m. until Sunday, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. at Hilton Garden Inn, 26225 North Riverwoods Blvd. in Mettawa. The cost is $64 for three days of sewing. Our retreats are full of fun and encouragement; we can get a lot done and meet and enjoy other guild members. Consider attending a retreat if you’d like to be more involved in the guild.
Sign up for this retreat begins on Sunday, March 1 at 8:00 a.m. If you are interested in attending the retreat, set your alarm and be ready to purchase your seat at 8:00. Seats for our retreats sell out quickly. If you miss the sign up, email a request to Marti Austin to be put on the wait list.
Scenes from the Village Quilters Winter Retreat. Our members work on a variety of projects!
Treasurer’s Report
Bank Balance as of November 30, 2025: $36,029.07
Income: $2,528.00
Expenses: $2,196.67
Bank Balance as of December 31, 2025: $36,360.40
December income consisted of $2,113 in retreat fees, $275 in workshop fees, and $140 in membership dues. December expenses related to the retreat and November speaker dinner.
Respectfully submitted, Melanie Houser, Treasurer
Sew-in Opportunity for New and Old Members
On the third Thursday of the month, a group of Village Quilters meets at the State Bank of the Lakes, 50 Commerce Drive in Grayslake for a sew in. In February the date falls on February 18. This group is called the Sunshine Quilters, and if you show up you are automatically part of the group! Everyone in our guild is invited to attend this activity from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It’s is a drop-in activity. Bring what you would like to work on. Some bring their machines, some bring fabric to cut, some bring handwork, others bring along blocks to arrange for a project. We work in the community room in the basement of the bank. Bring along a lunch if you’d like.
Questions? contact Kathy Heusinkveld or Marti Austin.
Membership Report
Happy Valentine’s Day! We are so pleased with our membership! We now have 125 members as of this writing! Welcome new members Jenelle Wass, Andrea Farr-Capizzi and Lucinda Vistain.
We are looking for seasoned members to become a mentor or buddy to our new members as they come in. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to reach out to the membership committee for details. And thank you to the ones who graciously volunteered to do so! We also want to know the year that you joined the guild for archival purposes. If you can’t pinpoint a year but recall a decade, we will accept that. Additionally, could you please identify your cell phone number vs land line on the sign in sheet. This is for future interest with possible communication.
Please don’t forget to wear your name badges (remember your quarters if you forget!)
Lorraine Potts and Robyn McGarrigle are your membership co-chairs. If you have a question, please feel free to reach out to us!
Happy February Birthday!
Kathy Heusinkveld - 2/3
Kathy Avellone - 2/5
Dorothy Roderick - 2/16
Carole Quille - 2/18
Eleanor McMurrin - 2/23
Debra Dodd - 2/24
Cheryl Mercy - 2/25
Mary Swanson - 2/26
