Bandana Collection
Kira Mardikes illustrates and botanically dyes bandanas with a variety of themes! She’s illustrated two designs for the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, a design for Moonlight Market on Bainbridge Island, WA and several that she sells locally and online. She grows dye plants in the Chimacum Valley with organic practices, such as marigolds, coreopsis, madder, indigo and weld. She then botanically dyes cotton bandanas in a four part process: scouring (cleaning and washing out sizing), oak gall tannin soak, mordanting (alum and soda ash) and then natural dying or steaming. Some bandanas have a more complicated process of mordant pastes and/or multiple layers of colors. Below and above are some examples.
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Beloved Warblers
Clay resist and indigo.
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PNW Herbs
Botanically Dyed with Indigo & Weld
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PNW Herbs
Tie Dyed with Indigo
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Orca
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Chimacum Nature Wheel
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Chimacum Nature Wheel
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Pollinator
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Coyote Family
Botanically dyed with Marigold flowers
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PNW Herbs
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Nut Bandana
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Nut Bandana
Madder and Black Walnut Dyed
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Moonlight Market
Pacific northwest Herbs
This most recent bandana is printed on 100% Organic Cotton and 23” x 23” and is hand dyed and painted with cutch and Mexican tarragon.
Featured Medicinal Plants:
Red Clover, Elderberry, Nettle, Turkey Tail Mushroom, Artist’s Conch, Oregon Grape, Self-Heal, Dandelion, Lomatium, Nutka Rose, Wild Ginger, Chickory, Yarrow, Fireweed, Mugwort, Mullein, Kinnickkinnick
2023
Coyote Family
Personal design inspired by the Pacific Northwest animals, plants, sweat lodge and St. Michael as a guardian. I hand dyed versions in small batches with weld (yellow), indigo (blue) and coreopsis (peach). 2022
Chimacum Nature Wheel
Commissioned by the Chimacum Corner Farmstand
Inspired by common plants and animals on the Olympic Peninsula. Featuring: sword fern, doug fir, wild strawberry, lupine, sunflower, poppy, big leaf maple, snail, yarrow, dandelion, rattlesnake plantain, red cedar, calypso orchid, nootka rose, columbine, St. John’s wort, alder, calendula, chicory, indian paintbrush, nettle, sapsucker, rabbit, red tailed hawk, horse, human, crow, sparrow, stellar jay, bald eagle, barn owl, coyote, mouse, and salmon.
22”x22” silkscreen on 100% cotton
Buy locally at the Chimacum Corner Farmstand or shop here.
Moonlight Market
Commissioned design for Moonlight Market, a First Friday art-walk market on Bainbridge Island, WA. Screenprinted on organic cotton. Original art by Kira.
Pacific Northwest coast themed bandana with eagle, heron, grey whales, sea otter, limpet, etc…
pollinator
Inspired by local farms who sell starts and seeds at the shop, such as Red Dog Farm, Midori Farm, Friends of the Trees Botanicals, and Heartwood Nursery.
Edible Nut Bandana
Collaboration with Heartwood Nursury out of Port Townsend, WA
Featuring: ginkgo, American chestnut, Oregon white oak, bay laurel, hazelnut, black walnut seedling, English walnut, and black oak.
All of these nut trees grow well in our bioregion on the Olympic Peninsula.
22” x 22”, dark brown silkscreen on 100% cream colored cotton, 2020
Available to purchase in my shop. Available locally at Aldrich’s in Port Townsend.
Orca Family & Prey
This design was inspired by Tahlequah, a Southern Resident killer whale who mourned for the death of her calf for 17 days by carrying her on her back in August 2018. She now has a new healthy calf! Our pollution of the local waters and disruptive tourism negatively effect the orca pods ability to survive and reproduce. As a token of my love for the orcas I donate 10% of profits from these bandanas to the Orca Network.
Specific to the Pacific Northwest ecosystem, this features orca mothers and calves, flounder, octopus, PNW seaweeds, squid, seal, salmon, trout, ray, bull kelp, sardines, oyster, clam, crustaceans, and a starfish.
22” x 22”, silkscreen 100% cotton, 2019
Available to purchase in my shop. Available locally at Aldrich’s in Port Townsend.