on must be in colour and the arrangement of
colour; and in studying this possible improvement it must be
remembered that cotton will neither take nor hold dyes as readily as
wool or silk, and that certain dyes which are very tenacious in their
hold upon animal fibre cannot be depended upon when applied to
vegetable fibre. There are, however, certain dyes upon which we can
safely rely. Indigo blue, and the red used in dyeing what is called
Turkey red, are reliable in application to both wool and cotton, and
are water and sun proof as well. Walnut and butternut stains will give
fast shades of brown and yellow, and in addition there is also the
buff or nankeen-coloured cotton, the natural tint of which combines
well with brown and blue.

In giving directions for rug colourings in cottons, I shall confine
myself to the use of black, white, blue and red, because these colours
are easily procurable, and also because rugs manufactured from them
will fit the style of furnishing which demands cotton rugs.

The examples I shall give call for graduated dyeing, especially in the
two tints of red and blue.

Any one expecting to succeed in rug weaving must be able to procure or
produce from two to three planes of colour, as well as two mixtures in
each. These would be as follows:

In blue:--1st, dark blue; 2d, medium blue; 3d, light blue.

After these three tints are secure, three variations of blue can be
made by knotting the skeins more or less closely and throwing medium,
light blue and white together into the dye-tub. Here they must remain
until the white skeins show an outside of light blue; the light blue
skeins are apparently changed to medium, and the medium to dark. When
they are untied and dried they will show three clouded mixtures:

1st, the medium blue clouded with dark; 2d, light blue clouded with
medium blue; 3d, white, clouded with light blue.

Here we have six variations of the one tint. Red can be treated in the
same way, except that a rather light and a very dark red are all that
can be counted upon safely as plain tints. A very light red will not
hold. Therefore we have in reds:--1st, dark red; 2d, light red; 3d,
light red, clouded with dark; 4th, white, clouded with light red.

This gives ten shades in these two tints, and when we add the
variations which seem to come of themselves in dyeing, variations
which are by no means subject to rule, we shall see that with these
two, and black and white, we are v