Lab vs. Field

As any scientist will tell you, something which works perfectly in the lab still may not play out properly in the field. That was the case here. I did a careful "twill test" to determine that a sett of 26 ends per inch would give me a 45-degree angle (a balanced weave, same number of throws per inch as warp threads per inch). I even washed and dried the blankety-blank thing. Then I warped the loom accordingly, spacing out 26 threads in 12 slots, 2-2-2-2-2-3. My purple weft thread hasn't arrived yet, so I decided to do one more test. I put in a "slicky cord" header which was obviously not cooperating to give 26 throws per inch, but that was slicky cord. Even allowing for its slightly different behaviour, I thought it was prudent to do weave a bit with the real stuff, i.e., 8/2 cotton. If someone told you there'd been an explosion near Mount Rainier this morning, that would have been me. Sigh. I am now re-threading the reed at 24 epi. At least I didn't have to re-thread the heddles.