Designer Spotlight Blog Post – Denise Kovnat
Welcome to our new Designer Spotlight Blog! We have been in contact with some of the many wonderful creators and makers in the spinning and weaving world. As our motto here at LFY is “Unique Yarns for Unique People”, we will be featuring a guest blog written by the designers themselves! Please note that all the pictures shown here are the property of the designer.
Our first designer is Denise Kovnat!
Tell Us About Yourself
In 1977, I was studying photography at our local museum. I walked by the weaving room, looked in the window, and marveled at all the looms and equipment. The image imprinted on my brain, like a gosling who sees a mother goose. I said to myself right then, "Someday I'm going to learn how to make those things work."
Fast forward 18 years: When I retired from my job in my mid 40s and became a stay-at-home mom, I began to study weaving. Like so many of us, I was hooked right away -- and studied with master weaver Joyce Robards for 4 and a half years before venturing forth on my own path. At first, every technique fascinated me, but soon I began to focus on twills and then Echo and Jin and parallel-threaded double weave.
Another area I enjoy is dimensional weaving, to achieve cloth that buckles, puckers, and pleats. I began to teach and learned how much I enjoyed it -- and how much more I could learn by teaching! Today, I can't say which I enjoy more -- the process of weaving or the friends I've made through this craft. I find weaving, yarn, color, texture, form -- all of it -- to be a refuge and a pleasure, a way to slow down and observe.
How did you get started in weaving?
My first teacher, as I mentioned, was master weaver Joyce Robards, who is a member of the Weavers Guild of Rochester. Other teachers who have inspired me include the late, great Liz Williamson from Australia and Bonnie Inouye. I can't say what inspired me to weave (other than what I originally mentioned), but something in the rituals of weaving -- planning a project playing with designs in Fiberworks, winding the warp, dressing the loom, tying on, testing different wefts -- gives me great comfort and satisfaction.
As Liz Williamson once said, weaving appeals to the way my mind works. And fiber itself appeals to my sense of touch.
What Looms Do You Use?
I weave on a 32-shaft Megado and a 16-shaft Toika, both computer-dobby looms. Both of these looms are in my home. I also have two table looms and a wonderful 8-shaft Structo loom. My designs range from 4 to 32 shafts and I'm often working with 8 shafts to weave samples for my workshops.
Special Tools for Weaving?
For some reason, I love my small Schacht anniversary boat shuttle, which is stained a sort of light teal blue. It's like a good friend.
Favorite Weave Structure?
I think I can say firmly that my favorite technique is Echo woven as double weave, using either two colors or four colors in the warp. Just magic! After that, it's probably Echo and Jin -- not necessarily in that order.
Favorite Lunatic Fringe Yarns Product?
20/2 Tubular Spectrum™ mercerized cotton yarn, which I use as weft in all my workshops for teaching parallel threading techniques and often in my own work. The colors!
Who or What Inspires You and Your Work?
The list is very long, and not necessarily in this order: Bonnie Inouye, Marian Stubenitsky, Eva Stoessel, Deborah Kaplan, Liz Williamson, Agnes Hauptli, Marg Coe, Mimi Anderson, Wendy Morris, Ann Richards, Sudo Reiko (of Nuno Corporation), the late Junichi Arai (of Nuno), and Susie Taylor -- not to mention all of our weaving mothers and fathers such as Jack Lenor Larsen, Richard Landis, Mary Meigs Atwater, and Marguerite Davison. I'm sure I haven't included everyone I admire -- not to mention all of the anonymous weavers of yore who created breathtaking work.
Why Do You Weave?
This is the toughest question of all to put into words. I weave because I love trying to create something beautiful and tactile, flowing and colorful, wordless and visual and yet speaking to others in some way.
What Are You Up To?
I just came back from a visit with the wonderful Eva Stoessel, who lives near Philadelphia. It was wonderful to get a glimpse of how she works and thinks. I plan on writing a blog post about her.
Projects in the queue: a 32-shaft Echo pattern that will become yardage (hopefully to enter in the 2026 Convergence exhibit), an 8-shaft double-weave pattern that uses 18/2 merino and 18/2 Superwash to create a puckered fabric, and an 8-shaft baby blanket (for a new relative to come) using Strickler #728, a beautiful multiple-tabby design, using 6/2 unmercerized cotton.
And "in my head" I'm working on an ambitious project, trying to design a 32-shaft pattern that uses the lift plan to create images, hopefully resulting in a design I like that honors the poet Walt Whitman. I figure the planning, and the learning could take me as much as a year, because I have a lot to learn....
Is There Anything Else You Would Like to Share?
Other than weaving, I love to dye fabric, using natural or man-made dyes and shibori-resist techniques, to create scarves, shawls, and wearables. It's the opposite of weaving in the sense that I do very little up-front planning and I get almost instant gratification from the results.
Last Question...Cake or Pie?
Pie!
Thanks Denise!
We love hearing about what you are up to and some insights into how you create and think about designing! If you would like to know more about Denise, you can click on the links below and visit her on social media to see what she is up to!
Blog/website: www.denisekovnat.com
Facebook page: facebook.com/denise.kovnat (my page is titled "Random Acts of Color")
Instagram page: instagram.com/denisekovnat/
Calendar
2024
October 19: "Echo and Jin: The Warp that Keeps on Giving," Zoom lecture, Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild, Dunwoody, GA
2025
January 23: 2-3 p.m. ET, Juror's Talk on Zoom, "Limitless Prairies, Limitless Sky" yardage exhibit for Handweavers Guild of America Convergence Conference (held in Wichita, KS, on July 24), sponsored by HGA. Click here to register online for the talk.
February 22, March 1, and March 8: "One Warp, Many Structures: Explorations in Extended Parallel Threading" Zoom workshop, Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild, Ann Arbor, MI
March 10: "Once Upon a Warp: From the Loom to the Runway" Zoom lecture and PowerPoint presentation, Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild, Ann Arbor, MI
March 14: "Echo and Jin: Variations on a Theme" Zoom lecture, Pikes Peak Weavers Guild, Colorado Springs, CO