Layer Asymmetry

[zeppenwolf]

My most favorite shirt so far is based on what I see is called "the spider"-- fold vertically in the middle, (with the front inside), then spiral it with the eye on the edge of the fold.

Unfortunately, it is only the front which I really love.  The black lines are sharp as a tack and they are one hundred percent symmetric.  Awesome!

But the black lines on the back are really asymmetric, one side being really thick, the other side having really thin.

I would really really like to make more shirts like that one, but I just cannot make myself do it until I come up with some way to make the back not be so horribly asymmetric.

So far, I can only think of looking for shirts which have a much lighter weave.

Is there any other way?

[Marg]

Hi- I have never done this fold, but let me ask: are you dying the side with colors first and then black second? Whenever I use black, I do the colors first. Also, are you thickening your dyes, or using unthickened? Have you ever done this fold with a different color in place of the black? If the same result happens, then you know it's more of a technique question and not the dye. Just a couple of questions to get started on trying to figure this out. Peace-Marg

[steve]

Turning the shirt inside out before dyeing will help somewhat.

[zeppenwolf]

"Turn the shirt inside-out" !!

Well, I would never have thought of that!

Marg, I don't have any thickener, but I will certainly get some if it can help at all with this.  I don't grok how it would, though.

I should have described how I dyed this shirt: I dyed it black and colored all at once.  I put a half-inch or so of black in a glass pie dish, lowered the shirt in gently, then squirted colors onto the top in the usual way, then let it sit 24 hours.

OK, for now, I guess I will try another shirt, inside-out, and using red instead of black.  It will be a good excuse to use this "#13 Fuschia" that I don't like, and it has the benefit here that it doesn't ooze hardly at all.  I can't imagine right now what other colors I can use "on top", but maybe I'll find inspiration at the mall today.  Thanks!
 

[ktaltre]

Lighter weight shirts will help with patterning.
My theory of why to turn the shirt inside out is that the front of the shirt is then closer to the dye application, if you get my drift.
M. Fowler didn't seem to turn his shirts inside out, but then he has that unique way of jamming his dyes in.
I often re-dye or over-dye shirts where the patterning isn't to my liking. Sometimes a heavy shirt needs two separate applications of dye when it's a folded-in-half tie.
k. taltre

[Marg]

I would apply the colors first and really saturate the shirt with those and then the black afterwards. I may just try some of these myself to see what kinds of results I get. Let us know how it works with the shirt inside out. I have never done that myself. Peace-Marg

[Jaja]

I think that assymetry could vary with the dyeing method used - different with "soda soak" and different with "activated dye".

[zeppenwolf]

Basically, the shirt is a failure.  Looking at the two shirts together, it becomes obvious what happened and why:

THICKNESS MATTERS

The thickness of the cloth has a definite and noticeable effect on the outcome. 

LESSONS LEARNED:

In the first shirt, folded normally, the left front and right front surfaces of the shirt are touching each other.  There is zero distance between them, so it should be no surprise that there is a near-perfect symmetry on the front of the shirt from left to right.  Now let's think about the back of that shirt.  One side of the back, (say the right half), is resting on the glass of my pie dish-- I'll call that "zero distance" from the dye.  For the dye to get to left side surface of the back, it has to travel through the right side of the back, (the one touching the glass), then through each folded side of the front, then *still* go through the thickness of the left half of the back to get to the very surface.  Id est, the part we see. 

That makes a difference of zero for one side of the back, to *four* thicknesses of cloth to get to the other side of the back.

Is it clear?

Now let's think about the shirt turned inside-out.

The back halves of the shirt are no longer so far apart-- what's touching the glass pie dish is now the inside surface of the shirt, so the right side starts at "one" thickness.  The left side of the back is closer-- it's at "three" thicknesses from the glass.  All told, the two back halves are now only two thicknesses apart, and yes, the symmetry of the back has improved.

But the front half *surfaces* of the shirt are no longer touching each other-- they are *also* separated by two thicknesses now.  Hence, that perfect symmetry is lost; the front halves are now *also* exactly two thicknesses apart.

Do you see?

The upshot is this: the first shirt has a front symmetry to die for, and a back symmetry which is ludicrously off kilter.

The inside-out shirt has an improved backside symmetry, but has lost the perfect symmetry on the front.

Since improving the back side from "highly ludicrous" to just "mostly ludicrous" is a distinction without a difference, there is no benefit (and a definite loss) to turning the shirt inside out for this fold and dye method.  For me. 

But it might be worth noticing what I have almost said without saying it explicitly: by turning a shirt inside out, one loses the right-front/left-front symmetry, but you gain two other symmetries: the right-front/right-back and left-front/left-back.  Those surfaces will be touching each other, and we would expect perfect symmetries there.  So for example, if you wanted left-front/left-back symmetry because you were doing an "Earth" design, it would make perfect sense to turn the shirt inside out first and then fold, spindle and mutilate.

[Michelle]

How about this. Normally when you're folding the shirt, you start out with the front touching the back and the shirt flat. Instead of doing that, fold the shirt so that the arms are touching. That is to say, the front and back are no longer touching each other and there's a fold down the middle of the front and the back. Then do 2 separate spirals, one for the front and one for the back. The front and back won't match each other, but the design on the front should be symmetrical and the design on the back should be symmetrical. Does this make sense? It's a bit hard to explain.

[zeppenwolf]

I tried that fold last night-- at least on the shirts I have here, it doesn't work very well.  The front behaves reasonably, but the area around the arms and much of the back gets all scrunched.  It just won't lie flat for more than sixty percent of the shirt...

The only promise this fold has left for me would be to fold the shirt normally, then dip it into my pie dish twice, once on each side.  Then I would have two separate asymmetries on the back, but they would be asymmetric in opposite directions, (I thmink!?), and so would tend to cancel each other out visually or psychologically.

But it would be a sticky wicket trying to dye inside the middle of the folded shirt!

[Michelle]

I tried that fold last night-- at least on the shirts I have here, it doesn't work very well.  The front behaves reasonably, but the area around the arms and much of the back gets all scrunched.  It just won't lie flat for more than sixty percent of the shirt...

Sounds like the only way you might be able to get something like what you originally wanted is to deconstruct the shirt, fold it as per what I suggested before, dye it, then sew it back together and still no guarantees.

[fiberartist219]

Have you tried squirting on the dye rather than dipping it? That way, you preserve the shape of the tied form because you handle it less after it is tied.

Just curious to see if this would help you or not.

[zeppenwolf]

fiberartist, what I wrote above was probably very confusing, (if you managed to struggle through it at all!), but the problem is all about the pure mathematics of the dye having to go through different amounts of cloth to get to different parts of the shirt in this particular fold.

I don't have a need to "preserve the shape of the tied shirt"-- if anything, my shirts are much too tight and rigidly fixed after spinning and tying, and I need to find a way to loosen them up.  But even if I did, that wouldn't in any way affect the problem I have with this fold.

For now, I'll just try another direction.  Since I mentioned it, why not an Earth shirt?  Everybody needs at least one, right?

[Stone Cold]

I'm not familiar with this fold. But on the Stained glass ones I do- I thicken the black and then use a paint brush to coat the shirt.
Don't know if it will help you or not- just how I do it.
Here is a example

[Lelia187]

So, when you say you coat the shirt... does that mean that you dye the whole thing... *both sides* and once you have dyed both sides, you cover that dye with the thickened black dye?

When I make my stained glass spirals, I dye one side and then dye the other side one color...

Which is better?

-Sarah