Casa Mai - Tie Dye Plain Folds

In order to achieve clean, sharp lines most of the tie-dye that I do is pleated rather than "scrunched" together. Keeping the pleats regular and even makes it easier to control where your colors and designs will be when you're done. Also I tie the garments by wrapping the pleats with dental floss rather than rubberbands. The floss stays where you want it and you can make it tighter (when wrapping) than the bands without disturbing your folds.
Straight across The most basic is simple pleating; either across the entire garment, along the hem or with a slight curve around a neckline.
This entire shirt was pleated straight across from shoulder to hem.	This neckline (from the middle dress below) was pleated from shoulder to center and back to shoulder with wedge-shaped pleats.
All three of these dresses were deeply pleated along the hem.

purple dress
Here the neckline was pleated around. The center of the dress was "splotched" with dye for a mottled effect.

blue dress
After the tie-dye was done and rinsed this dress was then overdyed in a tub for an overall tone. There were two shades of blue and a black in the first dye batch.

raspberry dress
This dress was simply dyed with black for the tie-dye portion then the whole was overdyed with raspberry. The transperancy of the dyes make the black more like a deep purple. It was a slightly bluish-black to start.

Diagonals
Diagonals are also very easy. The garment is pleated from corner to corner with the pleats running perpendicular to the direction you want the color stripes to run. Or, as in the examples below, the garment can first be folded in half diagonally and then pleated, resulting in more even stripes as they move away from the center.

diagonal t-shirt

diagonals

Basic diagonal, 3 colors.

This outfit, a tunic and leggings, is one of my favorites. The diagonals run opposite when worn. They were folded diagonally first, pleated and then dyed. The color was applied from the folded edge -- bright yellow, bright green and emerald. I applied scarlet to the very edge of the center with a sponge resulting in a fine accent line.