Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/228

 or kermes, or madder; all intermediate shades of claret and murrey and russet can be got by these drugs helped out by "saddening."

Black, as aforesaid, is best made by dyeing dark blue wool with brown; and walnut is better than iron for the brown part, because the iron-brown is apt to rot the fibre; as once more you will see in some pieces of old tapestry or old Persian carpets, where the black is quite perished, or at least in the case of the carpet gone down to the knots. All intermediate shades can, as aforesaid, be got by the blending of these prime colours, or by using weak baths of them. For instance, all shades of flesh colour can be got by means of weak baths of madder and walnut "saddening"; madder or cochineal mixed with weld gives us orange, and with saddening all imaginable shades between yellow and red, including the 204