Innocent 'The Big Knit' - Smoothies Hats

For the third year, I knitted hats for Innocent Smoothies The Big Knit campaign. These little hats will go on smoothie bottles and for each one sold, Age Concern will receive £0.35. I enjoy making these - this year I decided to experiment with stitch patterns from my various books, and they still took less than half an hour each to make from start to finish. Of course, I had to make some stripey ones too, it just wouldn't be the same without stripey hats!

These use up oddments of acrylic DK from mine and ma's stash. Since starting to make socks and using wool rich yarns for those, I've really moved away from using acrylic, so this puts it to good use.

The total this year was slightly down on last year, but I still made 74 :o)

Here they are, all neatly packed for shipping...

The Big Knit Hats - Sweepstake Winner!

I packed up the little hats knitted for The Big Knit and mailed them yesterday. Colin thinks they will look better on smoothie bottles than on him...

So, the entrants to my sweepstakes made the following guesses:

Sherry guessed 20 - good try, would have won last year, but not this time...

Cindy F. guessed 28 and 30 - getting closer ...

Quirky guessed 30 - and this one too...

Barbara guessed 33 - a little more...

Barbara guessed 58 - pretty good ...

Trillium guessed 60 - getting warmer ...

Karen V guessed 65 - nearly ...

The total number of hats I knitted was 78 - so Karen V is the winner! Karen, I think I still have your address from a previous exchange, so I will get your little prize out to you shortly.


Thank you everyone for your entries - and if you're in the UK, look out for be-hatted bottles of Innocent smoothies in Sainsburys from November - every bottle with a hat sold will mean a donation of £0.50 to Age Concern to help old people this winter.

The Big Knit - Sweepstake Still Open

As I've already mentioned, I'm participating in the Innocent Smoothies Big Knit.

Each bottle sold with a wooly hat will mean Innocent gives 50p to Age Concern. This is how many I've done so far ... ( a couple more are in my knitting back) - and if you can guess how many I will have by 14 October when I mail them off, you can win an item hand knitted by me!

Thank you everyone who has made guesses so far - you CAN make another guess if you'd like.

Update - Mostly Knitting...

Work has been busy - fun, but busy. There are a few issues which need sorting, but what workplace doesn't have those? I solved one of my issues with dealing with the volunteers - I sent them all out yesterday :o) - I got so much more work done... LOL

Today is one of my days off, but I have some stuff to organise, not least a knitting and stitching retreat for the stitch n bitch group I'm in. We had a meeting last night at a member's house, and in my efforts not to make a noise and wake her baby up, wasn't concentrating on my feet and fell down the stairs pretty much from the top - I'm covered in bruises this morning, but I didn't wake up Freddie! :O) I think I lost my concentration because I was tired - and when I lose that, because of the MS I'm more likely to trip or fall but - touch wood - I generally bounce :o)

I'm going to catch up on posting my finishes here too, as I'm so behind. The new computer is making it a lot simpler and quicker as we can use the up to date versions of the software :o)

I haven't been doing a lot of stitching though, my current addiction is knitting! I was taught to knit as a pre-schooler (*cough* 35 years ago *cough*) but never mastered knitting in the round on double pointed needles. After an interview last week for a company based close to a wool shop in the city, I picked up some sock yarn, needles, and a pattern and set myself to the task. It was awkward at first (very!) but I stuck to it for longer than my previous attempts, and here is the progress on my first sock, turned heel and all:



I've been working on the simple bits on my commute to my new job (much longer than the old one, it's one of the few downsides) but I worked the heel at home in peace and quiet ...

I'm also participating in the Innocent Smoothies Big Knit.

Basically, each winter, bottles of Innocent Smoothies are sold in a major supermarket wearing little wooly hats, to raise money for Age Concern and to raise awareness that each year in the UK, 25 000 older people die from cold related illnesses. Isn't that shocking? And of course with the huge rises in fuel bills this year, I'm sure many more old people will die as they simply won't be able to afford to heat their homes. My paternal grandparents had free coal as grandad was an ex-miner, and my maternal grandmother might have been frugal in other areas, but she always made sure she was warm, and I'm so thankful that they never had to feel the cold unnecessarily. Each bottle sold with a wooly hat will mean Innocent gives 50p to Age Concern. I've already knitted quite a few (28), and I have nearly a month to make more.



Sweepstakes: Make a comment guessing how many hats I will have knitted by 14 October (when I will mail the package to Innocent) and the person who guesses closest to the total will win an item knitted by me!

Hats, Hats, Hats!

There's 20 miniature hats in the picture.

"What on earth did you do those for?" I hear you cry!

It's all part of Innocent Smoothies The Big Knit

What's that? It's a fund raising campaign for Age Concern. Innocent want lots of knitted hats to put on the top of their bottles of smoothies. These behatted bottles will then go into Sainsbury’s in November and for every one sold Innocent and Sainsbury’s will give 50p to Age Concern.

Almost 25,000 older people died of cold related illnesses last winter, so it’s important to not only raise awareness, but to raise money to stop it happening again. Age Concern will use the money raised to provide support to older people in winter including hot meals, blankets and advice on how to keep their houses warm.

My gran was frugal in many ways (hey, she was Scottish!) but she knew the importance of keeping warm. I've knitted these in her memory because I'm thankful that she didn't scrimp on her heating bills, and that she was in a position that she didn't have to.

I didn't find out until very late on about the campaign, so nwext year I'm hoping to have more hats to send. If you have any oddments of double knitting wool lying around, I'd be very grateful for it!