When I first started making silk sets on my own, I wanted to create a spiral-type design, but needed to come up with a way to fold it without help. (at the time, that kind of fold was a two-person job)
So I had this idea of folding the silk and then sewing gradiant lines, which should give a a tiger pattern. I still remember my friends laughing good naturedly at me while I sat at the coffee table sewing silk by hand. They had good reason--I was using plyers to pull the needle through the silk!