ELECTRIC BLUE.
Feathers must be white, or nearly so, to make a good clear shade of electric blue. Prepare your feathers by washing with soap and hot water if dirty whites, and if old, faded light colors bleach with permanganate of potash. Prepare your bath as follows: Take half a teaspoonful of cotton blue and a half teaspoonful of oxalic acid,—a little more or less matters not,—in a gallon of boiling water. Enter your feathers, and let them remain in bath about five minutes; after which take out and rinse twice in cold water and once in hot water to remove all acid and loose color. Prepare a bath of about one cupful of logwood liquor and a small pinch of copperas in a gallon of hot water, not quite boiling, however, and pass feathers through for a couple of minutes. Cool off a little of your bath, and add a small handful of starch and a few drops of violet, pass feathers through and dry.