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
National Patchwork Championship weekend
Val: Well what a weekend we had; hubby and I were at the show at Sandown Racecourse, Esher in Surrey with our Justhands-on.tv hats on and it was such a pleasure to meet so many of you. I was also helping on the Creative Quilting stand - and boy were we busy there too, and then on Sunday I was there with the boys from Bizview.tv filming for the future - we met the new girls from Coloricious who make DVDs for the mixed media textile side of our business; Claire from Hannah's room did a great workshop for us using paints and shaving foam - you need to see it to believe it, but really great; Jennifer Trollope came up with a very clever colour workshop to use up our scraps into a very appealing kaleidoscope effect and using pritt stick (or similar!) and we had a truely terrific interview with Jacquie Harvey who is a very talented handquilting artist and her christening gown won the overall Championship rosette as well as the Handquilting rosette and the Wearable art rosette.
Endorsement from Karin Hellaby
Val; Karin Hellaby, quilter, author and owner of Quilters Haven said this : I do hope you will take a look at this fast growing site and consider becoming a member. With your help it can only get better and better! Why not email the link to all your quilting friends worldwide to let them know that here is a site that is showing what is going on in the textile world in the UK.
How to Make Tumbling Blocks Patchwork
Val: Tumbling blocks are a traditional favourite and often done over papers; it is based on the light/medium/dark theme to give dimension. In this short video our Jennie shows you how to make this pattern without papers and shows you the technique for insetting the seam, which works for both machine and handwork. One of the quilts on display at the current V&A Exhibition shows a scrap version of this - so now you can make your own!