Hi Bryan,
1. What should do about the black paint ridges? Scrape them off with a knife, or dab them with some kind of paint remover, or ignore them, or what?
Ignore them: I'm not sure there's a good way to get any excess paint off - some of the bandanas just have that - it's one of the reasons we stopped selling them originally. We hope that the tie-dye makes up for any small flaws in the screen-printing.
2. How shall I wash and dry the bandana when it finally needs it -- hand wash, or does the paint and coloring hold up well to machine washing?
You could hand wash, but they should be fine on regular cycle, but with cold water with similar colors. The dyes are very wash-fast, but at least for the first couple of washings, there's a possibility of some bleed.
3. How should I iron it to make it lie flat? Is there any concern about the paint coming off?
The ink is standard screen-printing ink, I believe, and I would not think it would stick to an iron. If you're worried, lay it face down on a piece of scrap fabric, and iron it from the back. Voila!
PS. My mail program wants me to spell it "bandanna". Checking at sites like dictionary.com, it looks like that is the original spelling, but the one with only 2 n's is also listed.
Yes, I noticed that, too, and looked at the listing on dictionary.com, which seems to list the double "n" as original and the single "n" as alternate - but two "n"s looks totally wrong to me, and I've found that when I search the web, most people seem to use the one "n" spelling.
Thanks for playing our games! -Alison