The warmth of wool meets the significance of sustainability in our collection of Upcycled Wool Beanies and Headbands. Made from our Gold Label Throw Blankets, each hat is a unique piece of wearable Native art.
We knit our entire Gold Label line of wool blankets and scarves in-house. With any textile manufacturing process there are instances where our blankets come off the machines only partially knit, such as when the yarn breaks or the machine skips a stitch and leaves a hole. These partial blankets are still luxurious pieces of fabric, so we have been saving them until we found a way to repurpose them.
Enter: our Upcycled Wool Beanies and Headbands.
Using our Gold Label blanket scraps, we have created a line of cozy headwear, reducing waste while giving you another way to accessorize with authentic Native designs. Our talented team sews these beanies and headbands here in Seattle, and you end up with a unique piece of wearable art made from the softest merino wool. "Our beanies are sewn with a six-pointed design," shares Eighth Generation's Textile Production Manager, Rebecca Morse. “This provides a close, round fit through the crown of the beanie, and takes time and skill to assemble.”
Four different blanket designs have been used in our Upcycled Wool Beanies. This hat is made from a Family Floral Throw Blanket by Kira Murillo (Shoshone-Bannock).
We chose the most visually appealing undamaged portions of each wool scrap, making every single hat unique. No two are alike, and the photos of each hat are only an example of what you may get. The hat you receive may have any portion of the blanket style you selected. Read more about the upcycling process and why it matters on our blog.
Product Details
- 100% merino wool
- 10.5 in wide lying flat: best fit for heads with a circumference of 21–22.5 in
- 8 in tall lying flat with an additional 3 in of folded cuff
- Machine knit and sewn in Seattle, Washington
Thank you for supporting Inspired Natives®, not "Native-inspired."
What is upcycling?
We all know the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Upcycling is the "reuse" part of the environmental equation, and in this instance we are reusing our Gold Label wool blankets. When we have a Signature Series Wool Blanket with minor flaws, we upcycle the perfect portions into our best-selling Upcycled Wool Stockings. And now we are able to take our flawed Gold Label Throw Blankets and turn them into Upcycled Wool Beanies and Headbands. We are proud to give this material new life by cutting and sewing it into something new and wonderful.
The world produces 92 million tons of textile waste each year. Our Upcycled Wool Beanies and Headbands (as well as our other upcycled products) keep good wool out of the landfill by turning it into new and usable products. "We're always thinking of ways to reduce waste in our textiles," shares Francesca Robello (Karuk), our Textile Production Specialist. "Our upcycled products—like our Christmas stockings and these new hats—are exciting to me because of how environmentally friendly they are." Francesca and Rebecca were the driving force behind both of Eighth Generation’s Sustainability Sales in 2023, and have done incredible work in making our Gold Label collection more sustainable.
