The Southlander – Norwegian Hand-Knit Wool Beanie / Watch Cap

The Southlander is a hand knit wool beanie hat, rib-knit in Norway, the old fashioned way, with knitting needles — no machinery. It’s made with high quality 80% sheep wool yarn, developed on the Norwegian West Coast. The wool’s coarseness is well below the itchiness level of 30µm, making it soft and comfortable to the average wearer. It is a thin, all-year wear, with no tags or markings, making it naturally a fold-it-as-you-like beanie.

Being wool, it enjoys the inherent qualities of the material — wool’s ability to draw a lot of moisture into itself, leaving your skin dry even when sweating. It is also naturally anti-bacterial, and can go a long time only being aired out, not washed.

Thinner yarn for an all-year wear

While most of our models are 100% wool, the 20% nylon in this one allows the yarn to be thinner, without losing durability. This makes this beanie more of an all round wear. It shines in everything from cool summer nights, to windy hikes, to fall and spring days. Many use it in the winter too, as long as the temperature doesn’t fall too far below freezing. While we experience temperature differently, 0°C/freezing point to 15°C/60°F is generally a good sweet spot.

Sizing

The Southlander comes in Regular and Large sizes.
Regular can stretch from very small sizes to the upper reach of common Medium size.
Large is recommended for head sizes around 58 cm 7 1/4 and up. They stretch to fit larger sizes as well.

Sourcing the softest wool

Norwegian raw wool is available to us, but our yarn provider on the West Coast sources the wool for this beanie from Uruguay, specifically because the Norwegian raw wool is coarser, and is better used for outer layer wear, such as sweaters. The sheep used for our wool are guaranteed not to be mulesed.

The design of-, and ways to wear the beanie

The beanie’s design is a classic rib-knit, aiming to, rather than inventing something flourishy, capture the timeless look of a centuries old knitting technique.

It arrives as one long, tight knit unit ready to stretch to fit your head, and for you to fold as you will. Single fold, double fold, roll-up or even unfolded, are all valid ways to wear this beanie.

It comes without any tag or markings, which is a callback to our heritage — when my mom knit for me as a child, there were no labels anywhere. Just needles, yarn, and skillful craftsmanship — and, as we like to point out, patience.