I’m Carol Thelen. I was bitten by the quilt bug in late 1991 during college. By 1996 I was a professional quilter. In 2002 my first book, Longarm Machine Quilting, was published. My second book, Professional Machine Quilting, was published the following year.
With the release of these books came many teaching and writing opportunities. For several years I taught classes in the United States and Canada on longarm quilting and running a business. I also wrote user guides for several quilting machine and software manufacturers.
In 2005 I started teaching at local quilt shops. These classes covered bindings, borders, quilts, machine quilting and other techniques. In 2011 I started teaching paper piecing and Quiltworx patterns. As of April 2016, the date of my Quiltworx Certification, I had completed over 30 Quiltworx projects, large and small and taught numerous classes at several local shops.
My teaching style is to give students the best experience as they learn new quiltmaking skills. Being prepared and organized helps to lower the stress levels of starting new projects. Classes and workshops give us the opportunity to learn and share with other quilters and are the beginnings of long term relationships.
Here you can learn about Carol and the three areas of interest she has in the quilting world:
QuiltNotes LLC was formed in 2015 by Carol Thelen. Originally the website was intended to be a place for quilters to journal their projects. That never really got off the ground so the focus changed to a Learning Center.
The QuiltNotes Learning Center is housed on a blog hosted by Blogger. The direct address is Quilt-Notes.Blogspot.com but it can be reached by typing in QuiltNotes.com. The articles have been transferred a few times as business changes. Now the QuiltNotes Learning Center has a permanent place on the free Blogger platform.
Carol's Quilt Shop was open in downtown Chappell Hill Texas from January 2019 through December 2020. It is a DBA under QuiltNotes LLC. Carol met many wonderful people during this time and hoped to sell the shop to someone who would keep it in Chappell Hill. But that did not happen.
It has always been a dream of Carol's to have a quilters retreat house, so in August 2020 Carol and David purchased a 3 acre property on Five Oaks Lane in Brenham Texas.
A small shop is located in the retreat house for the benefit of guests and is open one day each week for the public to shop, sew and learn.
Since the retreat house was ready for guests during a pandemic, there was never really an opening date but we can say it was ready in March of 2021.
The venue can accommodate up to 10 guests and they rent the entire property during their stay. All the conveniences and comforts of home are there.
The Five Oaks Retreat
2852 Five Oaks Lane, Brenham, Texas 77833
Copyright © 2022 The Five Oaks Retreat - All Rights Reserved.
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