Prepare your feathers by washing and rinsing thoroughly; and, if
necessary, bleach with permanganate of potash. After doing this, rinse
thoroughly in hot water for the purpose of removing all acid from the
fibre. Prepare your bath of one gallon of water at boiling temperature;
add thereto a teaspoonful of turmeric and a small pinch of copperas
about the size of a bean. Enter your feathers and allow them to remain
in bath about one minute or longer. Take out your feathers, and add to
bath about one tablespoonful of diluted Bismarck Brown and a few drops
of diluted violet; re-enter your feathers, and let them remain in bath
about three minutes, keeping them meanwhile well under the surface of
the bath; after which take them out, cool off a small portion of the
bath, and add thereto a small handful of starch; pass your feathers
through and dry in the usual way.
If a very dark shade be required, you will add to bath about a
tablespoonful of logwood liquor at the same time you add the violet,
and allow them to remain in bath a little longer. Should you find your
color entirely too dark for your sample to be matched, rinse off starch
in cold water; dilute about a half teaspoonful of oxalic acid in a
gallon or more of hot water. Pass your feathers through, and rinse off
in luke warm water twice; then pass your feathers through a bath of
boiling water, for the purpose of effectively removing the acid; after
which prepare again as called for in recipe, using a little more care,
and the desired result will be obtained.
[Illustration: SEAL BROWN--page 29.]
[Illustration: CRUSHED STRAWB'Y--page 34.]
[Illustration: ORANGE--page 48.]
[Illustration: BISMARCK BROWN--page 28.]