Put your scraps of stash yarn to good use by knitting a hat for Innocent's Big Knit charity campaign. For every bottle of their smoothies sold with a hat, the company donates 25p to Age UK. Since the campaign started in 2003, knitters have made an incredible 7.5 million hats, raising more than £2 million for the charity!

Mary Szabó's pattern, originally created for Knit Today magazine, includes instructions for knitting a dog, tiger, pig and bear. They're easy to make and would be a great project for beginners or kids learning to knit.

You can drop off your finished hats at your local Age UK shop, or post them to Innocent at the address on their website. Find out more about the Big Knit at www.thebigknit.co.uk.

You will need:

Oddments of any DK yarn

A pair of 3¾mm knitting needles

Polyester toy stuffing

Dark yarn for embroidery

Wobbly eyes (optional)

Download your free pattern:

To download your free knitting pattern, click on the link below and it will open in a new window. You can then save the pattern.

Innocent Smoothie Hat patterns PDF