By Karen Mitchell

	Originally known for her lush textile design, Kara DiOrio has broadened her talents to include interior design. This wall hanging commissioned for a Utah residence is a quilt crafted from silk, cotton, linen, and mixed fibers. Designer: Kara DiOrio Elevation kara@karadiorio.com 801-2448162 Photo © Stewart Ruckman

Salt Lake City soft furnishing/interior designer Kara DiOrio is a carrier of a special “textile gene.” At 16, she fell in love with the varied patterns and colors of the home fabrics she was selling at the time, and with the inherent possibilities of transforming cloth into her own creations.

“I would stay up all night to make an outfit from drapery fabric,” she recalls. “My grandmother sewed day and night to make ends meet for seven children. My mother couldn’t stand the sound of the sewing machine. The interest trickled down to me instead.”

DiOrio is known for her imaginative pillow covers, window coverings, and one-of-a-kind pieces, such as the wall hanging commissioned by Robert Redford for the Sundance Institute and a modern Crazy Quilt designed for an 18th-century bed. From there, DiOrio’s intuitive path led her to create a line of contemporary quilts in luxurious linens and silks, and then to segue into the larger arena of interior design, working with more materials and shapes.

“I collaborated on a few residential projects with interior designer Mary Brown. We decided to form our own company, Elevation Interiors,” DiOrio says. “This city is changing and becoming more sophisticated, with a growing number of people who have a more contemporary rather than traditional design sensibility.”

Many of her original pillow covers and quilts are incorporated into her interior designs, and are still made in the local workroom DiOrio opened in 1990. (She later sold it to the craftspeople she trained.) Her brother, fine arts painter Richard Stenerson, fabricates window coverings for her projects.

“I’m moved by the colors, textures, and shapes of Bauhaus; by 20th-century painters such as Francis Bacon, with his use of simple lines; and by the textile-like layering of Klimt,” DiOrio says. “I’m also excited to see the emergence of a green movement toward nontoxic materials. I want to design a line of bedding using those materials.”

DiOrio’s eclectic influences embrace her far-flung travels as well as the view from her own windows. “I’ve made a quilt called Thai Door, inspired by doors I saw in Thailand that are narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with big, beautiful square-carved handles,” she says. “And I love the clean openness of Salt Lake; its shapes and spaces make their way into my work. Even if I’m not always aware of that, it just becomes a part of who I am.”