community of dyers

I'll post a picture later (I have to find the camera) but I rolled a t-shirt that I had soaked in soda ash & let dry, on a 2" PVC pipe. (Shibori) I scrunched it, tied it & used a light & medium dilution of Turquoise. I let it batch at about 80 degrees for 12 hours. I'm happy with the results! :-)
I can't figure out how to post the picture, so here's the link to it:

http://www.makeupalley.com/account/picsearch.asp/u=lisa7788/

i accomplished something like this by accordion folding my fabric longways then flipping it and doing it again, the smaller the folds the more ripples you will have id imagine you could fold them at different intervals to get a more random pattern then dip just the corners in the dye. i was dying a diaper and it was very thick so i couldnt get that many pleats but its the orange one on the far right, i did one in blue too but i cant find the pic. the one next to it is what happens when you do 2 corners across from each other in 1 color then the other 2 a different color. and you just want to do the corners otherwise you will not have as a definite white area
im not sure how to post pics but you can copy and past the link?
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh65/shetibo/tie%20dye/IMG_3498.jpg
- mooshymon-boo AT hotmail DOT com

Joshua, give pole wrapping a go! It's an interesting technique and you can get some great results. Plastic plumber's piping works a treat! I think that you will find that by adding small creases and changing the direction of the wrap you will end up with your desired result.

Pole wrapping:
- Take your trusty length of plumbers pipe, whatever length will fit in your dye bath. I favour a larger diameter due to the fact that you end up with more variation. The smaller the tube, the more revolutions, the higher the number of repeats in your cloth.
- Take your pre-washed piece of cloth and wrap it around the tube. Use your hands to introduce small folds and squish the fabric along the tube to create more bulges.
-Take a long piece of string or cord and after starting with a knot, wrap the string around the tube from one end to the other. The more string that you wrap around, the more resist lines you will create. Make sure that it is tight. The string has to be kept very tight to ensure a good strong resist.
- Once you have tied off, you can carefully pull on the fabric to make the grain, warp or weft, slip uner the string. This should result in a rolling water effect but will definately depend on the type of cloth that you choose.

Once the pole wrapping is complete, you can dye it in any way you desire.

I must stress that these techniques require practise and you will need to try a number of samples to find out what method will work best for you.

If you have any questions, post again and I will do my best to explain. You should be able to find pole wrapping instructions amongst Shibori literature. It is a known and practised technique.

Have fun!

I did something by accident the other day that ended up looking like your desired pattern. I wet a piece of mid-light weight cotton and laid it on a padded surface covered with a HEAVY plastic painters cloth. Thinking that the surface was too wet, I went at it with a heat gun (like the kind for using with embossing powders).
The plastic dropcloth underneath the fabric started to shrink and melt in interesting patterns and grooves. So I took some LIGHTLY thickened MX dye and painted it on, drizzling some extra into the folds and grooves. I covered it lightly and left it for two days (had to go to work). Upon rinsing...It's a beautiful piece!

How about coloring it and discharging the white lines afterwards? Just an idea...

Here's a water piece that I made on a fat quarter. This technique will turn out differently using jersey on a bigger piece such as a t-shirt, though. I'm thinking shibori is your best bet to match the photo you posted.

Soak in soda, wad up the fabric into a small cup and inject colors using the needle from an inkject printer refill kit. Let is set for a few days. Open it up and let it dry completely. Wash medium, no soap. Dry it in the dryer if you want it soft and not crisp or starchy-feeling.

I've seen this effect in a book by Chris Rankin: Terrific T-shirt

They did it with stripping the color and ovrdyeing, if I remember it well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1579905749/ref=dp_image_text_0/002-8742260-5277645?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

I like their water effects. You could try to make a "chaos" and color it all with turquoise and light blue. If you use thicker colors, you may even get those thin white lines. Here's some water I did and it has those white lines.

So if you use fewer colors you could get it to look more pool-like.

I'm sure Paula could set you up with the link to a good chaos how-to. Good luck and let's see how it turned out.

You could also get a similar effect by using the shibori method of rolling your garment around a piece of plastic pipe ( I usually use one that is around 3" in diameter), scrunch the fabric together on the pipe, tie by winding string around the garment from one end of the pipe to the other, then back again, forming a criss-cross pattern with the string. Then you can direct apply or LWI if you have a large enough container. The last time I did one of these, I direct applied, then followed with some plain water poured over it, then batched for 24 hours. My shirt has several different colors on it, but with just one color, it would probably come out similar to the picture you posted.

Judy
Judy Sall Originals
http://www.angelfire.com/retro/tiedyejudy
"Life without tie-dye is waaaaaaaaaaaay dull!"

I think you should start by trying a diagonal adaptation of Judy and Jaja's tiger fold (click on the link), combined with two or three different strengths of turquoise MX-G, with possibly a little cerulean blue (blue MX-G) as well. Make the pleats a little narrower, that is, closer together, than in Jaja's examples.