Hats off to the smoothie operators

Doreen Hopwood, top, and Anne Ashton with some of the mini hats

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KNITTERS and needle workers across Oldham have been busy creating thousands of mini hats for a national campaign.

Age UK Oldham has been tasked with creating 12,000 of the decorative miniatures to adorn the top of Innocent smoothie plastic bottles.

The Oldham branch was so successful in sewing 4,000 by the end of January that they were asked to produce a further 8,000 by the end of June.

As part of the Big Knit, Innocent donate 25p to Age UK for every one bottle sold, which means that around £3,000 will be used directly to help Oldham's older residents.

The huge annual effort is organised to support the charity's Spread the Warmth campaign which helps care for older people during the cold winter months.

Maggie Hurley said: "We are calling on local knitters to get as many hats as possible to us by June 30. The Smoothie bottles don't go on sale until October so there's even more time for knitters to keep sending hats in throughout the summer to help Age UK Oldham reach the bumper target."

The registered charity posted on Twitter: "We're back on. Our new target is 8,000 little hats by July 2017. Let's get a clickin'."

The Oldham Chronicle paid a visit to the over-60s Chadderton site where the Age UK Oldham craft group has been busy knitting away to create hundreds more of decorative bottle hats.

Nationally some 800,000 hats are stitched in the run-up to the launch of the Big Knit, each taking around 15 minutes to complete.

Age UK extended a huge thanks to all those "wonderful" people who have produced the vast array of hats so far.

Last year the money was used to purchase and replace dozens of electric blankets and to fund an electric blanket testing day in Oldham where 64 per cent of blankets failed the test.

In 2015 the donations helped provide older people across Oldham with winter warmth packs, consisting of gloves, soups, hats, hand warmers and a blanket.

Maggie added: "Each winter, one older person dies needlessly every seven minutes because of the cold. Every hat donated to Age UK Oldham will help fund a life-saving service such as electric blanket testing.

"We always get blankets with scorch marks and failed overheat protection. There's always at least one blanket that makes the event worthwhile."

Maggie added: "For some of the other Age UK sites 6,000 bobble hats is probably a bit daunting so we are pleased to be able to increase our target."

A knitting pattern is available for download at http://www.thebigknit.co.uk/knitting-patterns.

Hats can be dropped off at Age UK's head office in Church Lane, the over-60's centre or an Age UK charity shop.