Starch was purchased in a box, it was not powder, it was more like granules, you mixed it to a paste and then to a very smooth cream by blending in very warm water with a slotted spoon. Next you kept stirring and adding in boiling water from the kettle until it was almost as thin as plain water. We had the latest bluing it was packaged like a Hershey bar! you carefully break off a little marked off square and it goes into the pan with the starch and you keep stirring until the bluing is all melted. Then after the clothes are washed and rinsed and put through the ringer you starch the things that need starch by dipping the garment or just the collar and cuffs in a basin that is full of half water and half the starch you just cooked, then those clothes go through the ringer again and then are hung out to dry on the clothes lines. The remaining starch solution can be saved in an old glass mayonaise jar in the refrigerator. When the clothes on the line are dry you bring them in and hang or fold except for the ones that need Ironing. T-shirts did not need sprinkling first just pressing, everything else was sprinkled with the water in a clean old ketchup bottle with a metal and cork sprinkler top. After a half hour, they are ready to iron!