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
coded; decoded – an exhibition by Prism Textile Group
This exhibition of contemporary textiles is on all week at the Mall Galleries in London and is FREE! We will be there on Thursday with the cameras, so if you can't attend in person, you can sit back later in the year and enjoy it from the comfort of your own home. More information on our events page. Update Information: Wow; what a great exhibition - well done girls; huge variety of textile art on display and all of an amazing high standard.
Exciting day spent at The Bramble Patch
Great day spent filming at The Bramble Patch a quilt shop near Northampton that was founded back in 1987, and they made us so very welcome; we got to interrupt a couple of the classes that were in session with Edwina McKinnon and Hilary Beattie as well as enjoy a demonstration on binding with Jane; AND we met Beryl and Bertha - want to know more?
Update 16th May 2014
Events This weekend many of our contributors are at Quilts [...]