Narcissism - what a lovely word, and how central to blogging.  Ah well, back to work, saving the world, one artisan at a time.  So I started out my dyeing adventure by deciding between Dharma Trading and ProChem as my supplier.  Dharma's website is much friendlier and after all, who can resist such a hippie name?  Not me.  So I started to work on the initial order, and it went on for at least two weeks, the ruminations and tweaking and looking-just-one-more-time at the variables.  But I finally sent it in and let me tell you it is not cheap to get into dyeing... The first order totalled upwards of $260 and there have already been two more orders.  But oh the glory!  Then there was the amazon order to buy the fearsome dust/vapor mask (3M R6211 Low-Maintenance Half-Mask Organic Vapor, P95 Respirator Assembly), and various trips to walmart, etc to get more accoutrements.  There was lots of checking and rechecking the procedures, the number of tablespoons of this and that... slooooooow start with a steep learning curve.  But did I mention the glory?  I used the wonderful if pricy Dyes and Paints by Elin Noble as my primary source for directions with assistance from Color by Design by Ann Johnston.  Here are pics of my first shirt made from the experiments of the first day: