community of dyers

"it's just alternating blocks of color, produced by offsetting the placement of the same colors on the back of the folded disk of fabric from where they are placed on the front:
If that's what you're interested in, I can explain how to do it more clearly."

That is awesome Paula, I for one would LOVE to hear your explanation of how that one was done!!

o you always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it?

Link to book with picture explanation, proceed to next pages I hope I did the link correctly.

Jaja and Paula, I appreciate the link to the book, but Paula specifically said something about the fabric being folded into a disc. This one is just fan folded. Is it the correct technique?

Do you always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it?

Okay, I can't illustrate what I am saying, since I am out of town right now (which is why I am so far behind on my blog), but this is simple enough that maybe I can describe it in words alone and have you see what I'm trying to describe.

I'm still finding it difficult, as a molecular biologist who's worked with DNA a lot, to see a spiral in the simple two-dimensional zig-zag design of this shirt example:

It's an easy concept, however. When you pleat a shirt, it's like this in cross-section:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
You have alternating folds, so both layers of the shirt are on the bottom side of your bundle of fabric, then the top side, then the bottom side, then the top side, again and again. If you dye one side of the fabric bundle with black, say, and dye the other side with turquoise, taking care not to leave too much white in the middle, then you end up with alternating stripes of black and turquoise.

Now what you can do instead is to apply dye in a more complex pattern. Instead of applying only turquoise to one side, apply a stripe that go across the pleats, perpendicular to the direction of the pleats themselves. Apply black dye to the rest of the shirt on that side, then turn it over. Instead of applying the turquoise stripe on the other side in exactly the same place, shift it over a short distance. As you can see in my example above, the stripes of the same color overlap just a little bit. Applying a stripe of color to one side, and then applying it on the other side about an inch to the right or the left, with just a little overlap, gives you that zig-zag effect that is sort of like a squashed two-dimensional image of a DNA spiral.

For the shirt pictured, it's a simple matter of applying stripes of magenta, then turquoise, then purple, then magenta, turquoise, and purple, to one side; on the other side use the same colors, but put a wide stripe of purple on one side of the pleated fabric, then, on the other side, have only part of the purple stripe overrlapping with the purple on the first side, and half of it shifted over about an inch. Continue with this scheme to cover the whole shirt.

Note that the shirt in the picture was probably folded in half first, with very good dye penetration; the sleeves were crumpled up evenly and different dyes applied more-or-less randomly, to give the chaos effect.

Too many people always apply exactly the same color to one side of their pleated and tied fabric as to the other, resulting in very simple designs. When you apply colors in different orders on the two sides of your pleated fabric, you have many more options. I like the effect of dyeing one side of the pleated fabric a different color than the other side. Of course, unless you are very careful to use exactly the right amount of thickener and to apply just the right amount of dye, you want to choose carefully which colors you place opposite each other, in order to reduce the likelihood of producing boring muddy brown colors.

-Paula

yes that is the dna style i meant, have seen so many variations of that style and look awesome! I shall try the butterfly then if just like that, one youtube video i found made it sound very complicated! A babygrow is a sleepsuit or a onesie, all in one pyjama thing basically. And a vest is little short sleeve top that poppers under the nappy, to wear as underwear. My facebook page is Becci's Babygrow's, link is : www.facebook.com/Beccis.babygrows

This link isn't working for me:
http://www.facebook.com/Beccis.babygrows
All I get when I try it is my own Facebook page.

Is there a problem with the address?

-Paula

http://www.facebook.com/Beccis.babygrows

not sure why link not working for you, worked for me

No, it just brings me back to my home facebook page. Maybe it only works for you for that reason, just because a non-working facebook address always brings you back to your home Facebook page.

Is it working for anyone else? Does it work if you log out of facebook?

In contrast, this address works:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.193640437344828.46787.145390885503117
...but look, other people on the bottom of the page are saying that they are having the same problem that I am.

I like the string markings on your tie-dyed pieces there.

-Paula

thata a really old feature, if look on my actual page you can see my latest items.

But we can't look at your actual page because the link that you posted doesn't work for anybody except for you!

Log out of facebook. Make sure you are logged out. Or use someone else's computer. Then try the link. It doesn't work!

-Paula

it seems to work for some people and not others. gonna try a link to one of my albums see if that works. not something im deliberately doing, quite new to all this only had my page a few months.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.242295575796543.83604.209311189094982

it seems to work for some people and not others. gonna try a link to one of my albums see if that works. not something im deliberately doing, quite new to all this only had my page a few months.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.242295575796543.83604.209311189094982

I don't know what's wrong with this link that you posted:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.242295575796543.83604.209311189094982

but I think you must have left off one or more of the numbers at the end, because it does not work, either! Facebook responds, "This content is currently unavailable".

-Paula

just logged out my facebook and tried my other link and worked?? so dunno, sorry. been attempting butterflies not comin out too well. how do i post an image on here??

To post an image, post a new forum topic. In this case, you should post it inside the topic Tie-dye shapes.

When you start a new topic, at the very bottom of the posting page, you have the option to "attach new file", which you can do using any working image from your own computer.

One of the bugs in the software I'm using is that it doesn't let you attach images in follow-up comments, which is unfortunate. You can always just put an image on another site, such as Photobucket or Flickr, then get the code to insert an inline link to the page, which looks like this: <img src="http://hostingsite.com/imagename.jpg" width="500">.

Many people read this forum without logging in first, even if they are able to log in, and then log in only if they want to make a post. I often do this myself. The only trouble with this is that the forum software does not even indicate that there is an attachment unless you are logged in. So I often go in and edit posts so that the attached images show up within the posting. I don't mind doing this.

-Paula

is that right?? if you wouldnt mind trying to figure out some my links, pretty new to all this so finding it bit confusing lol

Maybe the problem is with your Facebook permissions. The only thing wrong with your last link was a missing close parenthesis, which I fixed, but Facebook won't let me view the image. It says,

"The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page."

-Paula

not sure tbh what the issue is, maybe you have to like the page before can view the pics, i shall check the settings. does page show up if you search for it? cos dare say cant be many pages with same name

What page should I search for? Searching for "beccis.babygrows" or your email address yields nothing. "Babygrows" alone yields a lot of other people's pages.

-paula