After hemstitching with the 60/2 cotton yarn, I wove 4 picks of 28/2 red wool yarn with the fan reed at the central position – this will allow me to determine which weft yarn is which when I have the sample off the loom.
I then continued to weave with the 60/2 mercerised cotton yarn. From the central position, I moved the reed sequentially down to the lowest position and then up to the top position. I wove 8 picks at each position of the reed, this gave me ~15cm of woven fabric.
I then wove 2 picks of the 28/2 red wool yarn as a marker between weft yarns and continued to weave using the rayon weft yarn. I began with 8 picks per reed position until I was at the central band and then changed to 6 picks per reed position. I wove a full sequence down and back up to the top position, this gave me ~16.5cm of woven cloth.
Then another marker band of 2 picks with the 28/2 red wool yarn, followed by 4 picks per position of the 16/2 cotton. I moved the reed from the top to the bottom, back to the top and then down to the centre point where I hemstitched.
I then left a gap, wove 10 picks of the 28/2 red wool yarn, inserted two sticks on opposite treadles and a further 10 picks of the red wool yarn (the two-stick header).
Next, I cut the woven fabric from the loom, leaving the two-stick header in place.

The fabric was then wet-finished – hand washed in cold water with a drop of Unicorn Beyond Fibrewash, pressed on silk setting and laid flat to dry. Once dry, I scrunched and beat the fabric on the back of a chair to soften the silk.

Weft yarn	Pre-wash (cm)	Post-wash (cm)
60/2 cotton	13.3 x 35.2	12.6 x 34.8
Rayon	15.8 x 36.0	14.8 x 34.8
16/2 cotton	14.6 x 36.7	13.7 x 36.0

I have decided to use the rayon as the weft. It has a similar feel and sheen to the 60/2 cotton, but has less distortion of the fabric in the wide sections of the waves.
When weaving, I will lay a soft cloth over the fabric where it crosses the breast beam. This should protect the weft from distortion if I lean against the beam while weaving.

I am going to add 3 purple warps to each side of the fabric, I think it will look more complete with the edge stripes being a similar width to those between the main colour stripes.