This bandana is:
- 100% Japanese cotton
- Made in the USA
- Artist-designed
- Printed using eco-friendly, water-based ink
- LIMITED EDITION! once they are sold out, they are never printed again
- 22”x22"
- Hand cut and sewn with a folded flat hem
Meet our July artist- Norma Vela @normajeanestudio
After retiring from a 30-year career as a writer-producer for television, Norma Vela retired and moved to rural Maine in 2012 to help her son and
daughter-in-law build a family farm. Her artwork is inspired by the chickens, sheep, horses, and other livestock on the farm. These days, she is homeschooling her two grandchildren, creating art, or sewing baskets for Tethermade, which began
as an online store founded with her daughter and son-in-law in 2015, then expanded to a brick-and-mortar shop in 2023. Her “chicken-centric” artwork for NormaJeane Studio is available on fabrics and wallpaper through Spoonflower.com. Her
Chicken Damask design was recently selected by @DrinkingWithChickens to decorate her fantastic chicken coop in collaboration with Spoonflower and was recently featured in their blog as well as Sunset Magazine. Norma’s designs are also available as giftwrap through Zazzle.com, and other home goods through Society6.com and Redbubble.
Norma works primarily in watercolor and gouache, as well as digital design programs – and yes, she still has sheep in her pasture and chickens in her barn to inspire her every day.
July 2024 bandana by Norma Vela
A selvage's main purpose is to prevent unraveling or fraying, which makes a fabric stable and secure. Some fabrics come with frayed edges for aesthetic purposes. A selvage's self-finished edge makes sure that this fraying won't come undone and affect or damage the rest of your fabric.
Find a more detailed history of the bandana here. One of our favorite passages from this history...
As a minimum, you can expect bandanas to be 100% cotton... Some of the best makers offer selvedge bandanas, which have a barely noticeable selvedge line on one or two edges. The edges that are not selvedge will be folded and stitched.
One of the few places you can check the quality of the work is the corners. Has it been stitched together hastily, or is it clean and precise work? If you’re paying for well-made, it’s fair to expect nothing short of perfection.
Hand feel is an excellent guide here. If you like the look of the bandana, pick it up and rub the material between your fingers. Is it soft and supple? That’s a sure sign that the maker has gone out of their way to source top-grade cotton for their bandana. If it feels crisp or papery, mosey on to the next one.
Some well-made bandanas are deeply saturated in colour and could block out the sun on a cloudless day. Others are given a gentler dye treatment and are almost transparent. One isn’t better than the other, it’s just a matter of the maker’s purpose and your preference.
Finally, a well-made bandana, when unfolded and laid flat, should communicate something to you. It might tell a story, or it might evoke some far-away time and place or something nearer and dearer.
Great makers produce bandanas with this kind of intention. The bandana is their canvas, and, like all artists, they want their story to be understood and their work to be appreciated.