Feathers that are any color excepting dark green or black can be dyed
a beautiful shade of plum. Wash and rinse your goods, and prepare
your bath as follows: one pound of logwood to a gallon or more of
water, and boil fifteen minutes or longer, then add to bath about a
quarter pound of extract of archil, and enter your feathers, letting
them remain in bath about five minutes, after which take them out and
rinse in cold water. Prepare a bath of half an ounce of bichromate of
potash in a gallon of boiling water, more or less, and see that it is
thoroughly dissolved; pass feathers through about ten seconds; then
take them out and rinse twice in clear cold water; then dilute a small
handful of starch in a half gallon of luke warm water, and add to it
about half an ounce of soda; pass feathers through for about half a
minute and dry.
Should color be found too light for sample, rinse off starch in cold
water, and repeat bichromate of potash bath; rinse, starch and dry. An
old logwood bath that has been used for other colors will answer for
plum, and save boiling up a fresh bath.