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
Another great filming day .
Paula Doyle has kindly offered her studio again for a filming session of great new workshops; we will be joined by Anglea Daymond who will be working with dyeing from the kitchen and some great new stitching ideas with Aurifil thread - so keep watching! Well the day went well; Angela was filmed working on a piece of kantha work using Aurifil threads and then we had another great piece using spices from the kitchen and finally a little piece using recycled papers!
Update 19 September 2014
Workshops Last weekend, Valerie challenged you to find 9 Fat [...]
Thames Valley Contemporary Textiles
This group, that meets 4 times a year, were kind enough to ask me to give a talk based on my business experience in opening and running Creative Quilting, the quilt shop just outside London, which I founded back in 1989 (25 years ago now!) and more recently with Justhands-on.tv
I went armed with lots of quilts, which in fact proved to be a social history lesson in patchwork over the last 50 years or so!!!