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
World Quilt Show USA Winner from the UK
Christine Porter is the British Coordinator for the World Quilt Show, which takes place in the USA every year, This year she had 28 entries and she is thrilled to say that a British quilter (from Bristol) called Stephanie Crawford won the Best of the World award for her fabulous quilt, ‘A Chinese Journey in Three Parts’ - see below: She won $2,000.
A wander round Festival of Quilts 2014
Over 800 quilts to see but helping on the Creative Quilting stand meant that time to enjoy this was limited: two of the winning entries that caught my eye was the Traditional Quilt category won by Philippa Naylor – stunning appliqué and free motion quilting. and the Quilt creations category won by an amazing grandfather clock - so much detail that you would need a whole day to look at this properly; this category was sponsored by Vivebooks who are the publishers of a new E-book by Chris Porter entitled Sensational Circle Quilts.
Update 15th August 2014
Workshops Valerie continues with her series on appliqué – this [...]