For 1 lb. of yard or cloth, take 3 ozs. of madder; 3 ozs. of alum; 1 oz. of cream tartar; prepare a brass kettle with two gallons of water, and bring the liquor to a steady heat, then add your alum and tartar, and bring it to a boil; put in your cloth, and boil it two hours; take it out, and rinse it in cold water; empty your kettle, and fill it with as much water as before; then add your madder; rub it in fine in the water before your cloth is in. When your dye is as warm as you can bear your hand in, then put in your cloth, and let it lie one hour, and keep a steady heat; keep it in motion constantly, then bring it to a boil fifteen minutes, then air and rinse it. If your goods are new, use 4 ozs. of madder to a lb.
212. To colour green
If you wish to colour green, have your cloth as free as possible from the old colour, clean, and rinsed; and, in the first place, colour it 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 bowlful 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 coloured 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 desk coverings, &c.
213. To dye straw colour and yellow
Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colours a fine straw colour. It makes a delicate or deep shade, according to the strength of the tea. Colouring yellow is described in receipt No. 212. In all these cases a little bit of alum does no harm, and may help to fix the colour. Ribbons, gauze handkerchiefs, &c., are coloured well in this way, especially if they be stiffened by a bit of gum-arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping.
214. To dye A Drab colour
Take plum tree sprouts, and boil them an hour or more; add copperas, according to the shade you wish your articles to be. White ribbons take very pretty in this dye.
215. To dye purple
Boil an ounce of cochineal in a quart of vinegar. This will afford a beautiful purple.
216. To dye brown
Use a teaspoonful of soda to an ounce of cochineal, and a quart of soft water.
217. To colour pink
Boil 1 lb. of cloth an hour in alum water, pound 3/4 of an oz. of cochineal and mix 1 oz. of cream of tartar; put in a brass kettle, with water, enough to cover the cloth; when about blood hot, put in your cloth, stir constantly, and boil about fifteen minutes.
218. To dye A coffee colour
Use copperas in a madder-dye, instead of madder compound.