the Big Knit



what's with the little hats?

Here at innocent, we want to make it easier for people to live well through the delicious goodness of fruit and veg. Which is why we started putting little hats on our smoothie bottles in 2003. Back then, we gave 25p to Age UK for every hat-wearing bottle sold, but nowadays we’re up to 30p. This means every Big Knit smoothie does its bit for Age UK, helping older people live well through things like community support and guidance on nutrition (including good old fruit and veg). 

Thousands of legendary volunteers knit and crochet bobble dazzlers, then send them to us year after year. For our last Big Knit, they sent us a whopping 1.3 million little hats, bringing our total raised for Age UK to £3.6 million since we started out. Jaw-dropping stuff.

So if you’ve sent us a hat or bought one of our hat-wearing smoothies in store, thanks a bunch – you’re a real purl.

We’re not accepting hats right now (but don’t get your knitting in a twist, the Big Knit will be back before you know it). Keep your eyes peeled and those knitting needles at the ready.




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Here's a smoothie bottle with a strawberry hat on it. It's got an arrow pointing at it with the text "these little hats make a big difference".




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Here's a group of smoothie bottles with hats on them.

FAQs

Here at innocent, we want to make it easier for people to live well through the delicious goodness of fruit and veg. So every one of our Big Knit smoothies does its bit for Age UK, helping older people live well through things like community support and guidance on nutrition (including good old fruit and veg). You can read more about the brilliant stuff they do here.

As long as your hat fits nicely on top of our smoothies, we don’t mind if it’s got bells, whistles and a sound system, or if it’s a vaguely cap-shaped scrap. Every hat makes a massive difference to older people.   

The best way to test your hat fits is to nip to the shops and get yourself a smoothie (we would say that, wouldn’t we?) If you can’t do that, when laid out flat, your hat dimensions should measure about 5-7cm along the bottom and be at least 3cm high.

You’ve been to the shop. You’ve bought a smoothie with a little hat. You’ve basked in the warm glow of helping Age UK. You’ve drunk your smoothie. You’ve tried wearing the little hat. You’ve realised it’s not quite the right size. Now what?

We’ve seen little hats used for all sorts of things, from desk ornaments to bunting, gear stick warmers to Christmas tree decorations. They’ve been modelled by all sorts of action figures, not to mention animals great and small, from gerbils and guinea pigs to lizards and African snails.

If you feel it’s time for you and your hat to part ways, we’d love you to send it back to us, so it can go on another smoothie next year and raise even more money for Age UK. Returning a hat is free and easy. Just pop it in an envelope, write Freepost BIG KNIT on it in big letters, and stick it in a post box. Your hat will find its way back to us and we’ll keep it safe until the next Big Knit.

Find out where to send your creations here