The Big Knit
Join us to knit little hats for innocent smoothie bottles and help raise money to support older people in Solihull!
The Big Knit 2024/25
After a bit of a break, we are thrilled that the Big Knit is back, and even better, we will now receive 30p per hat - an increase from 25p in previous years!
The campaign will officially begin in October 2024, but do feel free to start knitting straight away if you'd like to!
The final deadline to get hats to us will be June 2025, and hats will be on bottles in shops from October 2025.
Can you help us beat last years total of 13,462 hats?!
Illustration by Meghan Allbright
Did you know two fifths of older people say the TV is their only friend? Loneliness can be a big problem in later life, and as many as 200,000 older people said they hadn’t spoken to friends or family for over a month.
The Big Knit is a partnership with innocent drinks which started in 2003. By asking Solihull's knitters to create little hats, the campaign raises funds to help us to be here for older Solihull residents who need help in later life, whether they are lonely, struggling with the cost of living, feel digitally excluded, or need our help in another way.
Hats knitted for Age UK Solihull help us make a big difference to the lives of older people in Solihull. Each hat that you send to us raises 30p, and the money raised can help us ensure older people are warm and well during the winter months, or help us decrease loneliness with our Linking People Together service. Your hats will then be put on top of innocent smoothie bottles to be sold in the shops in the winter.
The Big Knit can also bring people together to knit and have a chat with one another.
If you’ve ever bought a smoothie or knitted a hat, thank you for being part of the Big Knit.
Hat target
Thanks to the support from our fabulous knitters, in the last campaign we exceeded not only our original target of 8,000 hats, but also our second target of 13,000 hats! We are thrilled that our final total was 13,462 hats.
We received 25p per hat meaning a total of £3,365.50 was raised!
This campaign's target has not been set yet, but we'd love to bet last year's total, especially as the donation has now been increased to 30p per hat!
Deadlines
We’ll let you know when the next campaign kicks off.
Please hold on to your hats for now, and we’ll let you know when we’re able to receive hats again.
Download our patterns
Basic patterns
Intermediate patterns
- Banana hat
- Monster hat
- Stripy hat
- Wooltermelon
- Sir Hopsalot (new for 2021)
- Fantastic Fox (new for 2021)
Expert patterns
Want to know more?
Contact our Fundraising Team on 0121 704 7842 (leave a message) or email fundraising@ageuksolihull.org.uk
If your query relates to Winter Warmth contact 0121 704 8080.