Knitting and drinking for charity

One of the charities I support is Age Concern, whose mission is to prevent poverty and promote the well-being and equality of older people in the UK. Almost 25,000 older people died of cold-related illnesses in the UK last winter, so ever since 2003 pure drinks company innocent have been hold a very entertaining fundraiser for Age Concern.

With the help of knitters up and down the country, dinky little woolly hats sit on the top of innocent smoothie bottles in Sainsbury’s in November, and for each hat-wearing smoothie sold, innocent and Sainsbury’s donate 50p to Age Concern. Last year over 230,000 hats were sent in, and over £115,000 were raised to help keep older people alive and warm.

So I will be fishing out the needles and the oddjob yarn and knitting lots of little hats over the next while. They're just the right size to knit on the journey to work and feel the warm glow of accomplishment for actually finishing something (OK, it's a really little something, but it's still something!). I also bought a very cool quick pompom maker gadget the other week, so I can top them off with style.

If you too want to break out the needles and do your bit for charity, here's some details:

When you’re done, pop them in an envelope, write the number of hats on the outside of the envelope and send your hats to: The Big Knit, innocent, 3 The Goldhawk Estate, Brackenbury Road, London W6 0BA

P.S. Rowan Pure Wool DK gives a gauge of 22 stitches per 4 inches, so any yarn which approximates that should be a reasonable substitute. It's a good way to get rid of yearn stash leftovers.


More details can be found on the innocent website, which also has patterns for intermediate and advanced knitters (so obviously not for me), photos of some amazing hats people have sent in, hat of the week, a 'hatometer' progress graph, and various other items of interest.

And if you can't knit, then just make sure you buy lots of innocent juice in November!