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.
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Yellow and Blue
For each pound of cotton rags, take one ounce of sugar of lead, dissolve in warm water, put in a brass or copper kettle. Heat it to a scalding heat and put in the rags. Let them remain in half an hour; then dissolve one ounce of bichromate potash in warm water in a wooden dish. Take the rags out, dip in the potash, wring out and air. Repeat until you use the dye up. You will have a beautiful yellow. Be sure and use soft water.
To color blue: to five pounds of cotton rags take five ounces prussiate of potash, five ounces copperas and two ounces oil vitrol. Take the copperas and potash, put in a copper or brass vessel, heat it till well dissolved. Put in the rags, and scald from eleven to thirty minutes. Take out and cool. Add oil vitrol, then dip and take out. Hang in the shade. You can take more white rags and make a pale blue by dipping in after this. Put your yellow rags in this same blue dye, and you will have a nice green. Hold some in your hand and put in the dye in places, and it will be clouded yellow and green. This must be in soft water, also. Then hang in the shade, and when dry, rinse in warm water. - MRS. J. N., Seward, III.
Green. For five pounds of white cotton rags reeled in skeins, I take one pail of the inner bark of yellow oak, cut in fine chips, and boil it two hours in three pails of soft water, in either tin, brass or copper. Then skim out the bark and add onefourth of an ounce of alum. While the dye is boiling, take three ounces of Prussian blue, tie it up in a strong cotton rag, and rub it in enough soft water to thoroughly wet the rags; squeeze and turn them in the blueing nearly half an hour. Wring them out and take as many as you can handle at one time and put them in the hot dye, stir them around a few seconds and take them out; then put in more until you have them all green. Do not leave them in the dye a minute for it will soak out the blue. The rags may need to be dipped more than once. This color will not fade. If light green is desired, use less blue. - MRS. A. G., Ontario, Ind.