Fustic
boiled in soft water makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye;
but saffron, barberry bush, peach leaves, or onion skins, will answer
pretty well. Next take a bowl full of strong yellow dye, and pour in a
great spoonful or more of the blue composition. Stir it up well with a
clean stick, and dip the articles you have already colored yellow into
it, and they will take a lively grass green. This is a good plan for
old bombazet curtains, dessert cloths, old flannel for covering a
desk, &c; it is likewise a handsome color for ribbons.
Balm blossoms, steeped in water, color a pretty rose-color. This
answers very well for the linings of children's bonnets, for ribbons,
&c. It fades in the course of one season; but it is very little
trouble to recolor with it. It merely requires to be steeped and
strained. Perhaps a small piece of alum might serve to set the color,
in some degree. In earthen or tin.
Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colors a fine straw color.
It makes a delicate or deep shade according to the strength of the
tea. The dry outside skins of onions, steeped in scalding water and
strained, color a yellow very much like 'bird of paradise' color.
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