About the Center:
Established in 2002, the Weaving & Fiber Arts Center is the primary educational outreach for the Guild—-not a retail shop. Courses are offered year round: days, nights & weekends at all skill levels for both youth and adults. We offer differing formats: full-day and sequential -day workshops, half-day classes as well as once a week. The Center is open only when a class is being held — a schedule that varies widely. Visitors stopping in during a class will receive a brief welcome but will need to make arrangements for a longer visit by emailing the Center at wafac@weaversguildofrochester.org.
Our Weaving and Fiber Arts Center is located in the Piano Works Mall in East Rochester.
A Little History
The Center is the primary outreach activity of the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester. Managed entirely by volunteer Guild members, the Center is supported financially by class tuition and tax-exempt gifts.
For many years, classes in weaving and other textile arts were offered at the Rochester Museum and Science Center. In 2001, when the museum shifted its focus and closed the weaving facility, the Guild acted quickly to fill the void. We opened the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in January 2002 with the goal of teaching weaving and related fiber arts to Guild members and the community at large. Since then, the Center has continued to grow, moving from a small space in Village Gate to a larger space in the same building a few years after opening. In 2012, we moved to the Piano Works Mall and in 2017 we upgraded to a larger space in the same mall, just around the corner.
Our Studio Space
Our studio includes a large weaving room with looms, related equipment, and spinning wheels for student use. There, students have access to a collection of resource books available for students to use during class-time, to weaving software for project planning, and to the internet for additional resources. A second room is used for meetings and other classes, including knitting, felting, and dyeing.
What We Teach
We teach a wide range of weaving techniques, using traditional shaft looms, tapestry looms, inkle looms, rigid heddle looms, and triangular looms. We also teach card weaving, triaxial weaving, wheat weaving, and basketry. Some popular non-weaving art forms include felting, spinning, knitting, kumihimo, crochet, beading, wire work, Precious Metal Clay jewelry, Poly-Clay, dyeing (using both natural and man-made dyes), surface design, shibori, marbling, quilting, dragon boats, temari balls, coiling, tassel making, paper and book making, and silk fusion. We also offer courses in color exploration, garment creation (using handwoven, felted, hand-dyed, and other fabrics), finishing techniques, and how to use weaving software.
