My 15 Minutes of Fame for the 2014 Campaign!
Early in 2014 I was contacted by Innocent and asked if I would like to be part of their 2014 campaign for the Big Knit.
At the time it seemed a bit unreal, and I thought it must be a wind up. I filled in a questionnaire and thought no more about it.
Then I had an email asking if they could send a photographer.
Still, I wasn’t sure, things like this just don’t happen to ‘normal’ people!
Well, the photographer turned up, and I still wasn’t convinced that anything would happen with the photos……
…..but it did and here are a few photos from my 15 minutes of fame!
Some of the hats knitted for the 2014 Campaign
Hats Knitted by Other Volunteers
Marie M’s Hats
Marie-M remains a dedicated supporter of the Big Knit Campaign. She knits mainly for the campaign in Switzerland, but loves to share her designs and ideas with us here in the UK via my website. I have been happy to feature more of her patterns this year – find them here.
We are in touch regularly via email, and I am so pleased to have ‘met’ such a lovely person through the Big Knit Campaign.
Catherine & Jade Holland’s Hats
A fantastic 1000 hats knitted by Catherine and her daughter, Jade.
107 of these were Ollie Octopus hats. Jade knitted an incredible 100 Octopus. Indeed, she is known to knit 7 or 8 hats whilst watching a film!
The photos took 3 people 2 hours to set up – definitely worth all the effort.
Alison Rowland and her Mum’s Hats
Alison Rowland and her Mum knitted these 250 hats. 225 were her Mum’s creations and 25 were Alison’s.
They are going to drop their hats into an Age UK shop and were fortunate to be given enough little booklets of labels to put one on each hat!
Diane Will’s Hats
Diane Will has knitted a “wee pile of 40 hats”.
She sent them off to Age Scotland last week and wonders where they will all end up?
Diane is certain she has knitted Major Clanger, one thing she is certain of, it is not ‘Tiny Clanger’!!
Jennifer Brunton’s Hats
This was Jennifer’s first year of knitting hats for Smoothie Bottles.
She knitted 45 in total and hopes that they are doing the campaign again next year…a sure sign of Hat Knitting Addiction setting in!
Katharine McGuigan’s Hats
Katharine has knitted 75 hats so far, but is still knitting.
She is fortunate to live a five-minute walk from Fruit Towers, so can drop her hats in on her way home.
Maybe I should make it my ambition to drop my hats off in person one year…..!
Mandy Lindley’s Hats
Mandy is also a newbie Mad Hatter – she has knitted 55 hats this year, but is aiming for a higher number next year.
Mandy is better known by many of us for her skills at knitting donkeys – she had a little trouble with her first donkey, which has now been named ‘Wonky Donkey’!
Mavis T Pig’s Hats
Mavis knitted a total of 140 hats and dropped them in to her local Age UK shop in Bedminster.
The staff there were absolutely delighted – I am not surprised, what a lovely collection.
Princess Ntombi’s Hats
Princess Ntombi has knitted 575 hats in total and is another lucky person who lives close enough to Fruit Towers to drop her hats off in person – say hello to everyone for me!
Priscilla Seymour’s Hats
These are most of Priscilla’s hats for 2014. The photo was taken in Guernsey, but Priscilla lives in Florida for most of the year. She has some more hats to add to her collection when she gets back to Guernsey.
This is her second year of knitting hats, she enjoys seeing all the wonderful contributions from the Facebook group, and trying some new ideas.
Priscilla wonders if she is the most far-flung knitter in the group?
Karen Duncan’s Hats
This is Karen’s second year of knitting little hats, and she is pleased to say that she has definitely beaten last year’s total of 37 hats!
A lovely collection of designs for 2014, I am looking forward to seeing the 2015 hats!
Meg G-C’s Hats
Meg is 32 years old and suffers from a chronic illness, Lupus SLE. She loves to knit for charity as it gives her something to focus on as she can no longer work.
She felt she would like to introduce herself as the creator of these lovely hats.
An amazing collection of 100 hats for Innocent.
Cindy Boot’s Hats
This is the second year that Cindy has knitted for the Big Knit Campaign, and she has once again enjoyed it.
She decided for 2014 to make two of each design, and particularly liked making the little animal hats
Click here to see the sets of two hats. (PS – They are fabby!)
Mandy Lee’s Hats
Mandy finished her hats and couldn’t get upstairs! This is Mandy’s second year of “hatting” and she has managed 344! Last year she found out about the campaign at the beginning of October and managed just 43 to send off to Fruit Towers. However, she had so much fun knitting them, that she carried on; initially aiming for 150 this year…but as we all know it’s addictive!
Nicola Gough’s Hats
Nicola didn’t take a photo of the 89 hats that she took to Age Cymru, but she did take one of the Dougals.
There are only 19 here as 2 escaped, but you will be pleased to hear that they were later found.
If you would like to knit a Dougal – click here
Emma Rodger’s Hats
Emma has developed her knitting skills this year whilst working on little hats for little bottles. She has enjoyed using patterns from this site.
Emma has used buttons on her toadstool instead of stitching on spots and also uses them for eyes.
A lovely collection of hats Emma.
Katrina Strachan’s Hats
Katrina has just sent off 163 hats to her local Age UK shop – and here is a photo of every single one of them!
Hilary Ball’s Hats
Hilary joined the campaign late last year and managed to knit 50 little hats for 2013.
This year she is pleased to say she has 388 hats ready to post off.
Like the rest of us, Hilary is addicted to knitting little hats and gets a great deal of pleasure from her hobby.
Sue Pigg’s Hats
This is the first year Sue has made hats, inspired by the work of others on this website.
She reached her self-imposed target of 100 this year and plans to keep making them for the 2015 campaign.
Sue loves the community aspect to this project and helping to support a great cause.
Helen and Alison’s Hats
Helen and Alison are Teaching Assistants from Stroud. They loved knitting hats so much last year that they set themselves a higher target this year of 100 each. Having longer to knit them (particularly in the school holidays) certainly helped – and the knitting helped to relieve the stress of an impending Ofsted inspection too!
Alison is a big fan of the octopus and this year Helen’s favourite was the heart hat, which she hopes will be popular around Valentine’s Day.
Tracey and Ivy’s Hats
In October 2013 Tracey was sat watching the TV when she saw an advert requesting little knitted hats to be sent to Innocent Smoothies for their Big Knit Campaign in aid of Age Concern. That year she knitted 12 hats.
This year Tracey has knitted 84 hats, and she has inspired her friend Ivy to crochet 81 hats too. By my reckoning, they are in line for 580 odd each for 2015!! Tracey loves the fact that her little knitted hats may be making a small difference in someone’s life.
Shelly Sherrington’s Hats
This is Shelly’s 2nd year of knitting hats. She only managed a few in 2013, but with help and starting early managed 100 in 2014.
Shelly is registered blind – so this is all the more incredible! Thank you for sharing your story, Shelly.
Christina Rule’s Hats
In 2013 someone at work asked if Christina would like to join in the Big Knit. With two weeks to go, she managed to make 30. Last year she started earlier and made just over 180. Everyone in Christina’s office liked them so much, they decided to sell some of them off and send in some money along with the donated hats. They fetched £1 each.