Feathers must be white, or nearly so, to make a good clear shade of
electric blue. Prepare your feathers by washing with soap and hot
water if dirty whites, and if old, faded light colors bleach with
permanganate of potash. Prepare your bath as follows: Take half a
teaspoonful of cotton blue and a half teaspoonful of oxalic acid,--a
little more or less matters not,--in a gallon of boiling water. Enter
your feathers, and let them remain in bath about five minutes; after
which take out and rinse twice in cold water and once in hot water to
remove all acid and loose color. Prepare a bath of about one cupful of
logwood liquor and a small pinch of copperas in a gallon of hot water,
not quite boiling, however, and pass feathers through for a couple of
minutes. Cool off a little of your bath, and add a small handful of
starch and a few drops of violet, pass feathers through and dry.