Mrs. Seely's Cook Book: A Manual of French and American Cookery : with ..

This fluid cleans cloth, felt, silk and woolen goods, and restores the color. Eight ounces of benzine, quarter of an ounce of chloroform, quarter of an ounce of sulphuric ether, eighth of an ounce of oil of wintergreen. Shake well before using and keep away from all heat and fire. Apply with a cloth suited to the fabric. HOUSEHOLD RECEIPTS 43 The Best Way to wash and store Flannels Getting ready to leave town or getting ready for warm weather in town means the same thing in many respects. Flannels and flannel blankets must be washed and put away. The great point in washing blankets is to do the work so that they will preserve their softness and that the colored stripes may not lose their brightness. Soap should not be used in washing blankets ; instead, put either aqua ammonia or borax into the water. On delicate flannels avoid using plain soap. The best plan is to make soap jelly for the purpose in this way : — Shred finely as much soap as you think will be needed for the washing ; put it into a saucepan which should be kept for the purpose with just enough water, hot or eold, to cover it. Let it melt as slowly as possible until quite clear and free from lumps. Unless it is melted slowly it will boil, and boiling wastes it ; moreover, if boiled fast, or if the pan is too full of soap in the first place, it will boil over very quickly. If preferred, the soap may be set in a jar and melted in the oven. Any odds and ends of good soap may be used up in this way. It should be made fresh. To wash the flannels, have a tub half full of warm, not hot, water, and stir into it enough soap jelly to produce a good lather. If the water is hard, or the flannels are greasy, add a little ammonia to the water, a tablespoonful for every two gallons of water. If you are using ammonia soap, this last is naturally not wanted. Never rub flannels if it is possible to avoid it, as it is pretty suro to shrink them. But squeeze them in your hands, working them up and down in the soapsuds. Then turn them inside out and wash in a second lot of soapsuds rather weaker than the first, and rinse them at once in plenty of water, repeating this rinsing until the flannels feel quite soft and no soap is left in them. If soap is left in, the material becomes hard and sticky and has a disagreeable odor when dried. Use warm water to rinse in, for either hot or quite cold rinsing water shrinks and hardens flannels. When thoroughly rinsed, wring them carefully as dry as possible, using the wringing machine as it will not twist the stuff ; then shake them out, pull into shape, and dry at once in the open air if possible, in a good wind and out of the sun.