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
Winning fabric
Maureen shares a pic of this lovely bag that she made when she was a lucky winner of the prize draw of London fabrics - by Makower and donated by Creative Quiting - really lovely Maureen:
More sewing and filming for Justhands-on.tv
Just checked the weather report and its going to be a great sewing weekend! Am off this evening for a 24hour sewing marathon organised by Creative Quilting (down at Hampton Court) and really looking forward to it – 5pm Fri-5pm Sat with supper and lunch organised too; sew for as long as you like – I suspect I shall give up around 10pm but we will see – 16 of us so should be fun.
Printing with Freezer Paper
Val: This is such a clever idea - shared by a friend of mine - that I thought I would pass it on: Freezer paper can be printed on as a sheet of normal printer paper.
Import the picture/template into a word document, reverse it and print onto the paper side of freezer paper.
Magic paper
The one rule to successful printing on magic paper is to attach it to a well used piece of freezer paper.
Iron onto A4 freezer paper, foundation (Vilene) and print any picture/text in the usual way.
Run it through the printer 5/6 times to reduce the shine.
Iron an A4 sheet of magic paper onto this freezer paper, just enough to hold it, then print template.