Newsletter from the Rhode Island Weaving Center

Welcome to the first newsletter from the Rhode Island Weaving Center (RIWC).

This newsletter will keep you up to date on the activities and opportunities at the Center. The Center will become a place where weavers can come together, learn from each other, and enjoy our craft.

Check out our new space!

We have expanded. The RIWC now occupies the entire second floor of the Kenyon Building in Wakefield, RI. We have over 2,400 square feet of space with a beautiful classroom overlooking Main Street, a large space for our Beginning Weaving class, a wide-open area for our studio, and an additional large, bright space that is calling for workshops and gatherings. Please feel free to stop by to see us.

We are Offering Lots of Classes!

New Classes are started in February.

After a 3-week delay because of COVID, our ‘January’ classes finally started in February. We have over 30 students enrolled in 5 classes, including Beginning Weaving and Continuing Beginning Weaving, Introductory Tapestry and Continuing Tapestry, and Rigid Heddle Weaving. Last Fall we offered the same courses, plus Continuing Rigid Heddle Weaving and Inkle Weaving, and again had over 30 students enrolled. And our first offerings of Tapestry Weaving and Inkle Weaving last summer drew 13 students. People enjoy taking these courses, and the word is spreading as many of our courses are waitlisted soon after registration begins. We will continue to expand our class offerings, in both diversity and number, as we go. Please see the courses that we teach and send along any ideas that you have.

Future Classes Coming.

We are planning our summer offerings now, and our late spring classes are now open for registration.

Introduction to Tapestry Weaving - beginning April 13
Continuing Tapestry Weaving - beginning March 9
Introduction to Rigid Heddle Weaving - beginning April 14
Continuing Rigid Heddle Weaving - beginning March 10
Inkle Weaving - beginning April 11

Click here for more details and registration.

More studio weavers are welcomed.

With our new studio space we are looking for more studio weavers as our goal is to create an ongoing weaving community where weavers can get together to learn, assist, and inspire each other. We continue to build our inventory of looms with a variety of manufacturers, number of shafts, and potential weaving widths for people to use for all kinds of projects. Our newest addition, an 8-shaft Toika counterbalance loom, is on the way. Our group of committed studio weavers are now enjoying our new wide-open space and looking forward to adding more weavers.

Workshops

We are planning future workshops for different kinds of weaving and will be announcing the more dates soon. Our first workshop (April 6) will be creating a three-dimensional tapestry mask. Our new space will give us the opportunity to do this, and it will be fun to get together. If you have ideas or are interested in teaching a workshop, please let us know.

Click here for more details and registration.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested. We expect to send out newsletters every other month. If you would like to subscribe to this newsletter, please click here.

Subscribe our Newsletter!