I had intended to use 2/16 cotton for weft on the waffle towels, but in my digging in the store room uncovered some of the singles 6 cotton I have.
The yarn was sent as an error as part of a large order of 2/8 cotton directly from one of the few spinning mills left in Canada a number of years ago. I don’t even know if they are still in business.
Anyway, I rather suspect the 3 fifty pound cases of singles 6 they sent me were intended to be plied as the yarn has rather a lot of twist energy in it. As a result, in the right circumstances, the yarn will torque during wet finishing and ‘collapse’. This twist energy actually works quite well in waffle weave which, as a weave structure, ‘collapses’.
We returned two of the cases but since I was already exploring collapse effects, I kept one of them. I forget about it because I don’t use it very often and it gets buried to be unearthed from time to time as I attempt to reduce my stash. :}
To make things easier for myself I weave a cut line into the cloth so that when it is cut from the loom it’s as easy matter to cut them apart for serging. I program an empty pick into my liftplan to alert me when to insert the cut line picks.
The areas of waffle are separated by areas of twill. The hems are the same twill. Once the cloth is wet finished the twill stripes mirror the shrinkage rate of the hems and it all becomes a design element.
And no, these towels won’t get a hard press although the ones with the linen for weft will.