A towel and a placemat

For some reason, weavers appear to be fixated on weaving tea towels. There are towel exchanges within guilds, between guilds, at major conferences, etc. I'm not a tea towel weaver. In fact, I don't think I even own anything that could be considered a tea towel. I am on a fiber diet, and there is a lot of 8/4 cotton warp in my yarn closet, however, which makes nice tea towels.

Weave structure: plain weave
Loom: Ashford rigid heddle, 24"
Yarn: Maysville 8/4 cotton carpet warp, in pink, yellow, aqua
EPI/PPI: 12.5/12.5
Size after hemming, prior to washing: Towel = 17.25" x 29", placemat = 17.75" x 13"
Size after hemming and washing: Towel = 16" x 26.5", placemat = 16.5" x 11.5"

Originally, there was enough warp for two towels, but something happened to my thought process (a.k.a. a brain fart) that prevented me from stopping where I should have. So, just as I ended up with three-and-a-half waffle weave dishcloths, I wound up with one-and-a-half towels; the half towel is now a placemat. And, just for fun, I doubled the weft for the placemat, using two colors at a time. I like the result.

I secured the ends with an overcast stitch, then zigzagged on a sewing machine, then rolled the hemmed and finished using a zigzag stitch. Plain weave does not shrink like waffle weave, nor did these items shrink in a wonky manner. I'm pretty pleased with them, despite the selvages.