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To Dye Yellow


I will begin with yellow, the most useful colour in general for the

gentle craft. Put your crucible on a slow fire nearly full of water, or

say half full, for the first trial. Take a tea cup, and into it put a

table-spoonful of the best turmeric, pour over it some warm water, and

stir it well with a clean piece of fire wood; when the water begins to

simmer in the pot, put in the ingredient out of the cup, and stir it

w
ll with a piece of stick; have a second crucible, about half full of

soft water, and boil it, into this put two table-spoonfuls of ground

alum and one tea-spoonful of crystal of tartar, while these are boiling

and perfectly dissolved, put into it your hackles or hair, and boil

gently for an hour or half an hour; take off your pots and enter the

hackles into the yellow dye out of the liquor into which you put the

alum and tartar, and boil them very slowly for an hour, taking them out

at intervals to see the shade you require; if too pale you must put more

turmeric in, and if too heavy in shade the next trial, put in less, and

do the same with all colours till you please your own eye. When they are

the proper colour, take them out and wash them in soap and hot water.

Draw them evenly through your fingers in the bunch, and let them dry, as

this keeps them in shape.



There are three or four ways to dye yellow by changing the stuff. Fill

your pots nearly full of soft water, and put into one the tartar and

alum, and into the other two or three handfuls of yellow wood, which

must be boiled slowly for three or four hours; when it is well boiled,

strain off the liquor from the wood into a basin, and throw the wood

away; put the dyeing liquor into the pot again, and when boiling take

out the hackles from the mordant of tartar and alum and put them into

the yellow dye, let them boil gently for some time till the yellow

colour has entered the hackles or hair, then take them out and wash them

in soap and water, straighten them between the fingers, and let them

dry; take them in the right hand and strike them on the fore-finger of

the left till they are quite dry.



By boiling two handfuls of fustic and a table-spoonful of turmeric

together, and repeating the above process, there will be produced a

golden yellow, which is very good for fly making. There must not be too

much alum used, neither must the ingredients be boiled too long. Persian

berries, bruised and boiled slowly, with a spoonful of turmeric,

produces a good yellow; and an ingredient called weld, boiled as before,

and adding the alum, is a good dye for yellow,--indeed, the weld is the

best dye, if care is taken with it.



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