About Vendulka
Vendulka Battais is an award winning textile artist, tutor and half of the couple running textile studio OliVen in the heart of Suffolk.
Vendulka started her creative journey making clothes from remnants with her mum in the Czech Republic. She learned simple patchwork when she moved to the UK and was looking for a new hobby. From squares and triangles, Vendulka’s work evolved into quilting, embroidery, and circular patterns inspired by mandalas and dreamcatchers.
It was this growing passion which led her to start her own patchwork and quilting shop with her partner, Olivier, on the Isle of Wight in 2011. It’s called OliVen. In 2015, they moved family and shop to the village of Monks Eleigh in Suffolk.
Vendulka loves to make patchwork quilts, teach patchwork in the shop, travel to teach groups and demonstrate at shows.
Somehow she found the time to publish a wonderful book, Cathedral Windows – New Views, and win the Best in Show Award at Festival of Quilts 2021. This is what the judges had to say about the work: “a wonderful collaboration of design and workmanship. We loved the variety of feathers and their balance of glorious colour. A masterclass in the stitching of an intricate Mandala, together with precise use of the glitter liner medium.”
Signature Technique
Bringing embroidery into quilting
Top Tips
- Glittery and metallic paint on fabric brings a project to life – especially in the dark!
- Create an enhanced 3D effect on Cathedral windows with folded patchwork, padding, and a new colour twist.
- Combine different elements such as machine quilting and hand embroidery. It’s a joy to work on and the result is stunning.
Videos
Patterns
Posts
Malta – Our first international retreat
Jennie and Valerie have just come back from our first international justhands-on.tv quilting retreat in Malta with Stitchtopia/Arena Travel After a couple of days sightseeing and chilling at the hotel, our ladies enjoyed 4 days of workshops learning how to twiddle and fiddle with Jennie and then creating a quilt with Valerie combining the Dresden Plate/Grandmothers Fan blocks on day one with Flying geese on day two to create small medallion style quilts.
17 November 2017
New Videos Every Friday Shisha Mirrors We return [...]
Accomplishments
Janet wrote to show us her quilt - she's very proud of her accomplishment. She retired at 61yrs and thought she would try her hand at patchwork. This is the second quilt she made. She told us "it's not perfect as you can see but an accomplishment I never thought possible." We think it's a fantastic accomplishment and a lovely choice of colours too.