Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Contributions From Friends On Household Economy › Coloring Cotton Green
Coloring Cotton Green
Dissolve six ounces of sugar of lead in hot water, four ounces bichromate potassa in warm water; dip the cloth in the sugar of lead, wring out, then dip in the potassa. Dip three or four times, till a bright yellow is obtained. When the cloth is dry, dissolve four ounces Prussian blue, four ounces oxalic acid. Dissolve separately in warm water; then turn together, and dip your cloth in the blue dye, and you will have a splendid green. Prussian blue and oxalic acid make a beautiful blue for cotton. Dip three or four times for a deep shade. Rinse in salt-water. - MRS. D. B., Northfield, Minn. OR THIS. For five pounds of goods dissolve nine ounces sugar of lead in four gallons rain-water. Dissolve in another vessel six ounces bichromate potash in four gallons of rain-water. First, dye your goods blue (if you wish a dark green, you must have a dark blue-if light green, a light blue). Dip the goods first in the lead-water, then in the potash-water, and then again into the lead; wring out dry, and afterward rinse in cold water. - MRS. E. M., Grand Mound, Iowa. XXX. Scarlet and Pink.