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Show DYEING AT HOME. Cheap and Effeotive Methods of Securing Desirable Colors. - People living at a distance from shops, in the romote parts of the country whore delicate and other aniline dyes cannot he easily procured, can be almost as well accommodated, ac-commodated, when they wish to practice the economy of making some old article new by means of another color, by using the dye stuffs that nature furnishes them in any corner of their yard or garden, which their great-grandmothers doubtless found sufficient, and by various other domestic do-mestic expedients of little or no comparative compara-tive cost, and about as satisfactory in the long run as the new fangled and more expensive ex-pensive practices. If they wish to procure a delicate rose color let them steep in an earthen vessel balm blossoms In water the right length of time they can discover by trial and dip into that whatever article they wish to color, having, If the fabric be thin, dissolved dis-solved a little gum arable in the water, and they will probably be pleased with the result. A white fabrio can be dyed a very pretty pink if put Into a large pipkin with a little of the juice of the pokeberry J and some copperas, and left over night. All dyes, it should be remembered on good authority, have the art of subduing the dyer's hand to what It works in, and one should wear in handling them stout gloves, and lift and stir with clothes sticks as much as possible. If one wants a pale and pretty straw color she can have it by steeping, scalding and straining the outside out-side skins of onions. The bark of the barberry bar-berry gives a deeper tint, and an exceedingly exceed-ingly pleasant canary color can be had from the water in which the tops of a common com-mon garden saffron have been well soaked, whil a desirable buff or nankeen color can be procured by boiling birch bark in a tin pail with a small piece of alum. The wood found now and then In old gardens produces pro-duces a pleasant blue, and sumach heads give a deep maroon. Not only the garden but the pantry can aid In the matter; for even the tea grounds, boiled in an iron pot with a few crystals of copperas, will provide a useful slate color, and the dark paper in which a loaf of sugar. comes wrapped will give either a delicate lavender or a deep purple, according accord-ing to the strength of the bath made with it. A piece of old iron boiled in vinegar with a handful of copperas (it being remembered re-membered that copperas is poison) produces pro-duces a good and decent black, although logwood chips boiled in old cider give tho best block of all. And wherever there is a silk gown to be renewed a sliced potato over which a half pint of boilingwater has been poured will produce a dressing which will make It almost as good as ever a more expensive way being to boil half a cup of green tea in three pints of water in an iron skillet, and dip the silk therein, breadth by breadth, never wringing the material, and ironing it on the wrong side whilo still wet, with a moderately warm Iron. Harper's Bazar. |