The Enquirer

Miscellaneous

DURABLE DYES.

Mrs. Martha P. Graham, of Dumfries, Prince William County, of this state, has lately received several premiums from the Columbian Agricultural Society at Georgetown, (Potomac) for her very ingenious productions of domestic manufactures.

Great credit is due to this lady, on account of the quantity, variety, beauty and excellence of her manufactures, which were all spun, woven, dyed and finished in her family.

The following are Mrs. Graham's receipts for durable dyes.

TO DYE SCARLET.

One pound of madder (fresh gathered from the garden) will dye two pounds of wool. The wool must be washed clean, then boiled about 15 minutes in strong alum water. The madder is to be boiled in thin bran water, the bran being carefully strained from the water. The wool dripped from the alum water, and put in the bran water, must be boiled fifteen or twenty minutes, and washed out in soft soap suds, after it is cool. By leaving out the alum it dyes a good brown colour.

TO MAKE A CRIMSON COLOUR.

To two gallons of the juice of poke berries, when they are quite ripe, add half a gallon of strong vinegar, made of the wild crab apple, to dye one pound of wool, which must be first washed very clean with hard soap. The wool when wrung dry, is to be put into the vinegar and poke berry juice, and simmered in a copper vessel for one hour; then take out the wool and let it drip a while, and spread it in the sun. The vessel must be free from grease of any kind.

TO MAKE AN ORANGE COLOUR.

Take a quantity of touch-me-not, gathered on the stems, and bruise it well in a wooden mortar. On layers of touch-me-not and wool alternately, pour rain water or soft water from a spring until they are covered—let it stand 24 hours—then have ready a strong lather of soft soap and wash it out and put it immediately in the sun to dry. Salmon colour may be made by using hard soap instead of soft.—These colours brighten by washing.

Touch-me-not is found in low places—the stem is pale green, and the flower nearly of the colour that it dyes. It grows as high as six feet.