A Pair of Towels Inspired by the Love of Purple

A stash filled with purple yarns and the desire to use them in a randomly striped towel warp led Christina Garton, editor of Easy Weaving with Little Looms, to develop her Rule of Three warping method.

Read on to learn more about this project, developed exclusively for the Summer 2026 issue of Handwoven, or head to the library to access the project PDF. Please enjoy this subscriber bonus project from the Summer 2026 collection.—Handwoven editors

About the Rule of Three Towels

For as long as I can remember, I have been a purple person. If I can buy something in purple, I’m going to do it: clothes, accessories, household items, and, of course, yarn. Recently while organizing my yarn stash, I realized I had a plethora of purple 8/2 cottons in various tints, tones, and shades. [PAYWALL]

After surveying this hoard, I felt inspired to weave a set of rigid-heddle towels. I chose my purples and then added a bright pink for a pop of something extra. In my head, I envisioned a randomly striped warp, possibly making a gradient effect. Surely such a thing would be easy to do with direct warping—after all, I’d be able to see the warp stripes as I went along.

It took less than an inch of warp to recognize my hubris. It turns out that aesthetically pleasing and truly random warps are not as easy as you might think. I removed what little I had warped and pondered possible solutions.

A closer look at the semi-random warp stripes in Christina’s basketweave towel.

I eventually came up with what I call the Rule of Three. For each warp color, I’d warp three doubled ends at a time in both the slots and holes. Two doubled ends would be side by side, while the third would be separated from the other two by one doubled end of the next color, like this: A, A, B, A, B, B, C, C, D, C, D, D, and so on. I changed colors in an intuitive fashion, choosing whatever felt right to use next from my group of yarns and without repeating colors until I’d used them all. I like to think of this method as “semi-random.”

The resulting warp had exactly the look I was hoping for. The stripes felt random but not chaotic. I was also fascinated with how the colors changed depending on what was next to them. While all the colors looked purple on the cone, some of them leaned toward blue or gray in the warp.

For my first towel, I used doubled 8/2 cotton as weft, weaving it in basketweave. For the second, I decided to change things up by using an intensely bright pink 3/2 cotton along with a simple pick-up lace pattern, and the result was striking.

Weave it Yourself: Project Overview

STRUCTURE
Basketweave and lace.

EQUIPMENT
Rigid-heddle loom, 16" weaving width; 12-dent heddle; 2 shuttles.

YARNS
Warp: 8/2 cotton (3,360 yd/lb; Maurice Brassard; Lunatic Fringe Yarns), #1410 Lavande, #1507 Lilas, #4273 Mauve foncé, #5120 Mauve pâle, #5067 Periwinkle, and #1330 Rose foncé, 147 yd each. Note: Warp yardage will vary depending on how you choose to distribute each color throughout the warp.
Weft: Towel 1: 8/2 cotton, #4273 Mauve foncé, 135 yd; #5120 Mauve pâle, 118 yd. Towel 2: 8/2 cotton, #1330 Rose foncé, 18 yd. Beam 3/2 unmercerized cotton (100% organic cotton; 1,260 yd/lb; Gist Yarn), Hibiscus, 98 yd.

OTHER SUPPLIES
Pick-up stick; spool rack (optional); temple (optional).

WARP LENGTH
192 doubled ends (384 threads total) 80" long (allows 6" for take-up, 18" for loom waste, and 10" for sampling).

SETTS
Warp: 12 epi.
Weft: Towel 1, 24 ppi; Towel 2, 10 ppi.

DIMENSIONS
Width in the reed: 18".
Woven length: (measured under tension on the loom) 46".
Finished size: (after wet-finishing and hemming) Towel 1, 12¾" x 17"; Towel 2, 10¾" x 16¾".

Weave it Yourself: Project PDF

Visit the Handwoven library to get the PDF for the Rule of Three Towels.