In reading more about weaving, and actually watching some videos (not in their entirety of course, I don’t have that kind of attention span), I noticed the warp yarns were further apart than my warp yarns. I grabbed a bag of variegated cotton bits and this time I tried skipping a peg between warp threads. I also used some tissue in the first two rows as spacers, and found a method for getting the sides more even by pulling the end warp thread away against the weft of each pass. I still have a little hour glass shape, but the tension across the whole piece is much, much better.

With the wider warp, which I think would be 4 ends per inch (epi), I was able to pack down the weft (back and forth passes of yarn) to cover the warp (up and down) yarn. I get stripes instead of the interesting color play, but the finished fabric is so much softer and thicker. It was easy to pull the warp threads through the piece for the fringeless method of finishing, and easy to weave in the ends. (I actually enjoy weaving in the ends, but it is basically sewing, and I like needle work.) The colors are interesting; it is obvious that I’m working from leftover bits of yarn, but my youngest thinks the pink and rainbow is awesome. So there we go.