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
Tablerunner from Anne Baxter
Apart from flowers, who do quilters love most? well more fabric of course! So we hoped that Anne would love the bundle of fabric we chose for her as a 'thankyou' for our great filming day together - well look what she made with it! Love it Anne - thanks again.
New Video Layout
We have recently upgraded and improved our video system on the website, as some of the eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted. It will also help those of you who may have recently experienced difficulties seeing the videos, caused by browser updates. For those of you unsure about the new controls, here's a picture to help you, but if you still need help just click here to contact Juliet with your queries.
To try to keep you in touch
Here is a lovely comment from one of our viewers: Hi, as a member of this brilliant club , I would love to win this month's giveaway prize Thank you so much for your hard work, it is much appreciated. It keeps us in touch with the quilting world.
Kind Regards
Carol and it is what we aim to do - So keep watching for more from Jennie, Angela Daymond, Paula Doyle and myself as we share new workshops and some of our favourite things.