Welcome to “Five Questions With,” where we get to know designers and their weaving a little better.
For this edition we’re talking with Karen Donde. While you may know Karen as a multi-shaft weaver and teacher, she also leads classes about design—a topic weavers of all kinds can benefit from. In fact, she’ll be teaching two weaving design classes at our upcoming Weave Together with Handwoven retreat in beautiful York, Pennsylvania, on Mar. 23–27, 2025. One class focuses on using photos for inspiration, the other on using stash yarns.
To understand the kind of designer Karen is, check out her incredible Bubble Wrap from Handwoven’s September/October 2012 issue. Not only is it an astounding feat of deflection, the design also toes the line between playful and elegant. Even the name is meant to spark a smile. It showcases Karen’s approach to design, which is one of joyful inquisitiveness. She asks herself “What if . . . ?” and from there magic happens. —Christina
Karen Donde's Bubble Wrap. Photo by Joe Coca.
C: Tell us a little about your journey into weaving and how you got started.
K: I’ve always been a fabric person and grew up sewing. Shortly after I moved to Southern New Jersey, an article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer with a huge picture of a beautiful loom and Naomi Cannon at the controls, and an invitation to the Welcome New Weavers meeting of the South Jersey Guild of Spinners & Handweavers. That article and picture ignited something in me. I couldn’t attend but when I contacted Naomi a few weeks later, she invited me to her home studio to meet other guild members and try some of her weaving equipment.
She must have seen something in my eyes, because she pulled me away from the group and told me to sit at the loom I’d seen in the paper. She put the shuttle in my hand and said, “Step on that treadle. Now throw the shuttle through that opening and catch it with your other hand. Take your foot off the treadle and pull this toward you. Now, step on that treadle and throw the shuttle back.”
Three throws of that shuttle, and I said, “Sign me up!”
For the warp colors in her Isle of Skye series, Karen looked to the Isle of Skye tartan for inspiration. Photo by Karen Donde.
C: A lot of your work shows a confidence in your color choices. While you’re not afraid of neutrals or using monochromatic palettes, when you do use a bright, multicolored palette you go all in and the result is really stunning. What’s your approach to those sorts of designs? How do you go about picking out a multihued palette like you did for your Isle of Skye series?
K: I usually start with the warp and figure out the weft after it’s on the loom. Color inspiration often comes from something I see. Sometimes it’s the yarn in my stash. I tend to collect space-dyed yarn. I will use one of those skeins as a starting point, pulling out three or four other yarns in those colors and winding them together in the warp. Then I sample weft colors until I find one that sings.
It was different with the Isle of Skye series. While traveling in Scotland, I was overwhelmed by tartans, but the one that stuck with me was called Isle of Skye. I purchased a small change purse in that tartan, and then analyzed the tartan sett (thread color count). Unwilling to trust my own dyeing skills, I searched for a line of yarn with colors as close to that tartan as possible.
Not a huge fan of plaids, I decided the Isle of Skye tartan sett would be my pattern warp in a turned-beiderwand design. I selected a ground warp in dark green that disappeared in the background. Then I sampled different wefts until I was happy with the results.
C: Do you have colors that you dislike or have trouble designing with? If so, how do you approach them?
I just opened my yarn cabinets to see what color has been lingering on the shelves. As much as I love coral tones, especially in flowers, I have trouble finding a good use for pink in my weaving.
Yellow is also a challenge that’s not limited to yarn. I once picked a lovely pale yellow paint for a bathroom. When the painter was about 85 percent finished, I walked in and felt like I was surrounded by bananas. The room got repainted, though I couldn’t tell you what color.
I probably approach those colors with extreme caution or avoid them altogether. Still, every once in a while, a little bit of yellow or pink can liven up a project. I’ll be winding a warp and decide it needs a little pop. I’ll dig that cone out of the back of the cabinet and wind it onto the reel. Sometimes it’s the perfect touch.
C: You’re teaching a Weave Together course on designing from photographs. When did you start using that method of getting design inspiration?
The picture idea was introduced by a few teachers, but it wasn’t until I participated in a design study group in the South Jersey Guild that I started using the idea for my own work. We were fortunate to have a graduate of the master’s program from what was then Philadelphia Textile University in our study group, and she shared design techniques she had learned in school with us.
That included using pictures for inspiration. I remember it was fall, and she told us to buy the September issues of Vogue and other fashion magazines, which are always so thick with ads. “And don’t overlook the ads,” she advised, saying these magazines represent a lot of inspiration and guidance about fashion trends for the price of a single issue.
One project, however, was inspired by a picture I took. Here in Western North Carolina, my kitchen window faces east, where I often see the sun rising over the mountains. We get a lot of fog and haze at certain times of the year, which produces some gorgeous sunrises. More than once, I’ve run out on the back deck with my phone to try and snap a good picture.
So, it wasn’t one picture, but a collection of sunrise images, that led to a wall hanging featuring a circle in the middle with arcs above and below that got progressively shorter in both directions. The circle and arcs were imperfect, with a vertical slash cutting them apart right through the middle. The circle and arcs were red, and the background was gray with a bluish tint, reminiscent of those mountain sunrises. I wasn’t really trying to reproduce the picture; I wanted to capture what I was feeling while watching those sunrises.
C: What’s on your loom or looms right now?
K: Unfortunately, only the remains from all the samples I wove in preparation for the teaching I was doing last spring and summer. After Convergence, my husband and I spent most of August cruising the Mediterranean, exploring, and taking pictures. There was so much inspiration, I’m still processing it all.
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It was such a delight to talk to Karen about her approach to weaving and design. If you enjoyed it as much as I did, you can learn more about Karen as she answers more questions over at our Handwoven sister website. And if you want to learn from Karen in person, a few tickets are still available for our 2025 Weave Together with Handwoven retreat!
Happy Weaving! Christina