community of dyers

I think Paula answered your question, but here are 2 more examples. The moon tee on top was done by drawing a half-circle and pleating, as Paula described, the "bullseye" swimsuits done by bunching around a stick (handle of a wooden spoon) and rubber-banding at intervals, if done in the center of the garment and banded once would make a circle.

(Paula, what size do you like pictures to be in the forum? These are smaller than I like but I think I often post them too large)
Jen

Can you find a picture online somewhere to show us? Otherwise it's impossible to know exactly what you mean. (Also, do you have a picture of several members of the team you were dyeing for earlier, wearing their shirts?)

A fold I like to do is to draw an outline of an actual circle, using a dinner plate as my stencil. I fold the shirt in half first, and make an effort to get the plate centered so that the result is really a circle, not an oblong. Then I finger-pleat up along the line, with small, neat pleats, tie in a few places, and apply different colors to the front and the back to get interleaving colors when the shirt is unfolded. It's similar to the bull's eye fold, but I get better detail. It's done like the folded version (not stitched) of the heart design. Sometimes I do this but dye the center circle with highly dilute pale dye, mostly water, to leave a light section for ironing on a picture or statement. Iron-ons work best with tie-dye when they are printed in only blacks and greys, not colors, with clear instead of white for the background (i.e., non-opaque iron-ons).

Here are two shirts I dyed using this technique. The first has the face of a friend on it, and the second one is the rose window example that I posted here before: