Running Stitch Placemats

Please understand I'm a new weaver, so this might be my own mistakes, but I had a few issues with this pattern:
1. I did a 3 yard warp and barely had enough warp for 3 placemats. When I measured, they ended up a bit longer than expected even though the 14.5" section was pretty dead-on. I think maybe I could have beat slightly harder (though they seem to have about 12ppi. Also, I think I left a bit too much space between each and used a bit too much yarn to tie on to my 4 shaft loom, but I would really recommend an extra (approximately) 1/2 yard of warp, especially for beginners.
2. The Duet is thinner than I expected; these placemats are not very thick/dense even after washing. To me, the pictures make them look thicker than they are. You can almost see through them.
3. Finishing these seemed a bit difficult for me. Again, maybe because I'm a new weaver, but keeping good tension on the edges was pretty tough.
4. Because I was tying to my warp leftovers from a previous project, I did put two crammed ends in the same heddle and did a straight draw, which worked nicely.

Criticisms aside, they turned out pretty well for an early project. I'd just wish I had a bit more information before starting, such as how tight 4 would be on a 3 yard warp. Again, maybe the result of my beginner status?

I found some of the instructions regarding sleying the stripe sections unclear. Consequently, those sections are more open than I think they should be, but they still look great. However, I think that with this yarn, a longer warp would be beneficial, as I found it difficult to find the shed near the end. I have since made the napkins, adding about 8 inches to the warp, which helped.

I wish I could write a glowing review, but I can't. Maybe because I'm a fairly new weaver, but I found the yarn to be very difficult to work with. It was sticky, stiff, and the plys came easily undone. I had a hard time warping it, getting even tension. When I finally started to weave, there were large spaces between each row of weft that I couldn't eliminate. Sadly, I had to decide to simply abandon the whole project, discarding the yarn, and chalking it up to a learning experience. It's the first time I've had this kind of failure and I'm going to assume that it's due to my inexperience. I'm sure other weavers may enjoy this yarn quite a bit - but not I.

I made 2 sets of the Running Stitch placemats on my RHL with the recommended Duet yarn. For the first set, I used Storm (primary color) and Anchor (accent color) and followed the pattern exactly except I only wove 7 horizontal and 7 vertical stripes. For the second set, I used Dune as the primary color and Pearl as the accent. I also doubled the warp ends between the stripes, which resulted in a sturdier placemat (note: there was enough yarn on the primary cone to double the warp ends).

It might not be obvious from the photo but there are subtle color variations in the Duet yarn, which means that the woven pieces have a surprising depth of color that I haven't been able to achieve on a RHL with yarns that I've purchased from other yarn stores. The finished placemats are beautiful!

And GIST Customer Service is fantastic! I had a couple questions early on and Christine was so responsive and helpful! As a relatively new RHL weaver, I so appreciated her advice.