A few general rules are necessary to be observed in coloring. The
materials should be perfectly clean; soap should be rinsed out in soft
water; the article should be entirely wetted, or it will spot; light
colors should be steeped in brass, tin, or earthen; and if set at all,
should be set with alum. Dark colors should be boiled in iron, and set
with copperas. Too much copperas rots the thread.
The apothecaries and hatters keep a compound of vitriol and indigo,
commonly called 'blue composition.' An ounce vial full may be bought
for nine-pence. It colors a fine blue. It is an economical plan to
use it for old silk linings, ribbons, &c. The original color should be
boiled out, and the material thoroughly rinsed in soft water, so that
no soap may remain in it; for soap ruins the dye. Twelve or sixteen
drops of the blue composition, poured into a quart bowl full of warm
soft water, stirred, (and strained, if any settlings are perceptible,)
will color a great many articles. If you wish a deep blue, pour in
more of the compound. Cotton must not be colored; the vitriol destroys
it; if the material you wish to color has cotton threads in it, it
will be ruined. After the things are thoroughly dried, they should be
washed in cool suds, and dried again; this prevents any bad effects
from the vitriol; if shut up from the air without being washed, there
is danger of the texture being destroyed. If you wish to color green,
have your cloth free as possible from the old color, clean, and
rinsed, and, in the first place, color it a deep yellow. Fustic
boiled in soft water makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye;
but saffron, barberry bush, peach leaves, or onion skins, will answer
pretty well. Next take a bowl full of strong yellow dye, and pour in a
great spoonful or more of the blue composition. Stir it up well with a
clean stick, and dip the articles you have already colored yellow into
it, and they will take a lively grass green. This is a good plan for
old bombazet curtains, dessert cloths, old flannel for covering a
desk, &c; it is likewise a handsome color for ribbons.
Balm blossoms, steeped in water, color a pretty rose-color. This
answers very well for the linings of children's bonnets, for ribbons,
&c. It fades in the course of one season; but it is very little
trouble to recolor with it. It merely requires to be steeped and
strained. Perhaps a small piece of alum might serve to set the color,
in some degree. In earthen or tin.
Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colors a fine straw color.
It makes a delicate or deep shade according to the strength of the
tea. The dry outside skins of onions, steeped in scalding water and
strained, color a yellow very much like 'bird of paradise' color.
Peach leaves, or bark scraped from the barberry bush, colors a common
bright yellow. In all these cases, a little piece of alum does no
harm, and may help to fix the color. Ribbons, gauze handkerchiefs, &c.
are colored well in this way, especially if they be stiffened by a bit
of gum-Arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping.
The purple paper, which comes on loaf sugar, boiled in cider, or
vinegar, with a small bit of alum, makes a fine purple slate color.
Done in iron.
White maple bark makes a good light-brown slate color. This should
be boiled in water, set with alum. The color is reckoned better when
boiled in brass, instead of iron.
The purple slate and the brown slate are suitable colors for
stockings; and it is an economical plan, after they have been mended
and cut down, so that they will no longer look decent, to color old
stockings, and make them up for children.
A pailful of lye, with a piece of copperas half as big as a hen's egg
boiled in it, will color a fine nankin color, which will never wash
out. This is very useful for the linings of bed-quilts, comforters,
&c. Old faded gowns, colored in this way, may be made into good
petticoats. Cheap cotton cloth may be colored to advantage for
petticoats, and pelisses for little girls.
A very beautiful nankin color may likewise be obtained from
birch-bark, set with alum. The bark should be covered with water,
and boiled thoroughly in brass or tin. A bit of alum half as big as
a hen's egg is sufficient. If copperas be used instead of alum, slate
color will be produced.
Tea-grounds boiled in iron, and set with copperas, make a very good
slate color.
Log-wood and cider, in iron, set with copperas, makes a good black.
Rusty nails, or any rusty iron, boiled in vinegar, with a small bit of
copperas, makes a good black,--black ink-powder done in the same way
answers the same purpose.
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