The Dyer's Guide / Being a compendium of the art of dyeing linen, cotton, silk, wool, muslin, dresses, furniture, &c. &c.; with the method of scouring wool, bleaching cotton, &c., and directions for ungumming silk, and for whitening and sulphuring silk and wool; and also an introductory epitome of the leading facts in chemistry, as connected with the art of dyeing

by Thomas Packer

To dye cotton PINK.

Take safflower in proportion to its goodness and the quantity of work to be dyed; put it into pure and clear water; tread it in the water till the water becomes fully charged with a kind of extractive yellow colour. It is best to put the safflower into a strong linen bag or sack; a sack containing sixty pounds will take a man two days to wash it clean: if done in a clear running stream the yellow colour will of course run away; if you have a small quantity in a tub it must be let out at a plughole, which every flat tub should have. The safflower must be worked or trod till all the yellow colour is got out of it, or the pink to be obtained from it afterwards will not be bright.

When the safflower is thoroughly washed, take it out of the bag and put it into a deal tub or trough, and add to it pearl-ash in the proportion of six pounds to one hundred pounds of the safflower, which should be weighed before it is wetted. Let the potash be well dissolved in water; pour part of the clear solution off, and mix it thoroughly with the safflower; after having stood for some time strain the liquor through a cloth or sieve into another deal trough. The whole solution of pearl-ash should not be put in at once, but at different times. If there should be reason to believe that the safflower will yield more colouring matter by a farther addition of the solution of pearl-ash, such additional solution may be made. The water for the solution and the solution to the safflower should both be applied cold. Carbonate or mild potash is better than the caustic. By putting the solution of pearl-ash on the safflower at different times it will be readily seen when the fluid passes through the cloth or sieve free from colour.

The colour is of a cherry hue, and is resinous, therefore the water dissolves but little of it; the carbonate of potash is added to dissolve this resin.

To overcome the influence of the pearl-ash, which tinges the red of a yellow colour, some cream of tartar must be finely powdered and dissolved in boiling water, and added to the liquor when it is nearly cold. In the South of France lemon juice is used.

The colour, being thus raised by the cream of tartar, is now to be mixed with cold water in proportion to the fulness of the pattern desired, and the cloth must be worked six or seven times in it, as in other colours.

What is left of the colour must be taken up with some skein cotton, and dried; this may be added to water upon another occasion by saturating the acid with a solution of pearl-ash, which will abstract the dye from the cotton.

The solution of tartar will again redden the colour from the yellow of the pearl-ash; this must be done if any remain, for it will not keep in a fluid state.

We shall not here describe any other process with cotton till we have treated of wool and silk.

For dyeing cotton black, and some other colours, see the chapters V. and VI.

[7] The difference between decoction and infusion should be always carefully observed: a decoction is made by boiling the ingredient or ingredients in any liquor; an infusion is that in which the ingredients are put but not boiled.

CHAPTER III.
ON DYEING SILK.

To alum silk—The blue vat of indigo for silk—Another blue vat for silk—To dye silk violet, royal purple, &c.—To dye silk lilac—Another process for lilac—Another process for dyeing muslin, &c. lilac—To dye silk a violet or purple with logwood—To dye silk violet with Brazil wood and logwood—To dye silk violet or purple with Brazil wood and archil.