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
Hearty Good Wishes from Janet Clare
We had a great filming day yesterday and were joined by Janet Clare who showed us her wonderful new range of fabrics - inspired by her Hearty Good Wishes book; are't they gorgeous! Distributed by Moda - should be in the shops soon. More to come - so keep watching! Picture taken by Matt Bigwood www.matthewbigwood.co.uk
www.flickr.com/photos/mattbigwood/
What to do when the Rugby is on
I converted these simple 9 patches in a couple of hours into this sweet quilt for my favourite Charity 'Momentum' Want to see the workshop? click here:
Does the size of the stitch matter for hand quilting?
No it's the even-ness that is important and makes it look nice; want to know more then you should give a few minutes to watching the workshop given by Paula Doyle for heirloom quilting: click here: For larger stitches, and utility quilting then Carolyn Forster has given us a couple of workshops: Amish Waves and Big Stitch UtilityQuilting.