colour, and it is a great
advantage if the dyeing can be done at home. There is a strong and
well-founded preference among art producers in favor of vegetable
dyes, and yet it is possible to use certain of the aniline colours,
especially in combination, in safe and satisfactory ways.

Every one who undertakes domestic weaving must know how to dye one or
two good colours--black, of course, and the half-black or gray which a
good colourist of my acquaintance calls _light black_; indigo blue
equally, of course, in three shades of very dark, medium and light;
and red in two shades of dark and light. Here are seven shades from
the three dyes, and when we add white we see that the weaver is
already very well equipped with a variety of colour. The eight shades
can be still further enlarged by clouding and mixing. The mixing can
be done in two ways, either by carding two tints together before
spinning, or by twisting them together when spun.

Carding together gives a very much better effect in wool, while
twisting together is preferable in cotton.

Dark blue and white or medium blue and white wool carded together will
give two blue-grays, which cannot be obtained by dyeing, and are most
valuable. White and red carded together give a lovely pink, and any
shade of gray can be made by carding different proportions of black
and white or half-black and white. A valuable gray is made by carding
black and white wool together (and by black wool I mean the natural
black or brownish wool of black sheep). Mixing of deeply dyed and
white wool together in carding is, artistically considered, a very
valuable process, as it gives a softness of colour which it is
impossible to get in any other way. Clouding--which is almost an
indispensable process for rug centres--can be done by winding certain
portions of the skeins or hanks of yarn very tightly and closely with
twine before they are thrown into the dye-pot. The winding must be
close enough to prevent the dye penetrating to the yarn. This means,
of course, when the clouding is to be of white and another colour. If
it is to be of two shades of one colour, as a light and medium blue,
the skein is first dyed a light blue, and after drying is wound as I
have described, and thrown again into the dye-pot, until the unwound
portions become the darker blue which we call medium.

In a neighbourhood where weaving is a general industry, it is an
advantage if some one person who has a general aptit