The Dyer's Guide. Chapter V. On Dyeing Silk And Cotton Black, &c. To dye cotton violet.

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 Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.

By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.

"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.

"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.

Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.

London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
Pass the skeins through the black vat and dry them, then pass them through a decoction of galls and dry them again, then through a decoction of logwood, then of alum and verdigris, washed off, and dried.

Or thus: by the black vat liquor, that is, the liquor of old iron and alder bark in some cases. Let the vat liquor be prepared from the iron hoops, vinegar, rye, or coarse bran, described in page 108. By this liquor it is easy to procure all the violet shades from the pansy flower up to the lilac and violet.

The goods must be first blue-vatted and dried, then galled and dried, then passed through the iron liquor, then maddered, then washed off, and dried; the liquor must always be kept much below a boiling heat, as this heat makes the colour obtained from madder brown: whatever drugs require boiling must be prepared by a decoction previously made.

For some shades sulphate of copper is used; for others verdigris, saltpetre, and alum.

To dye to the pattern the preparations should be always of one given strength, and all solutions of mordants the same. The time of working the goods in the dye must be regulated by the fulness or lightness of the pattern; and the quantities of the various drugs, &c. used much or little accordingly, reserving patterns of processes, with the particulars of such processes noted down. In proportion to the number of these upon record, and with strict attention to the subject, a good pattern dyer is formed. Time and practice are, however, absolutely necessary, with a delight in the business: for without a pleasure in dyeing no one can become a good or an eminent dyer. In many of the branches of this art there are, it is true, labour and pains in abundance; but there is also a portion, and that not a small one, of pleasure in others, which will counterbalance the care, anxiety, labour, and fatigue inseparable from this useful and important occupation, and which so strikingly exhibits the science and ingenuity of man.