HATS off to this charity challenge!Kind-hearted volunteers are today urging the people of Suffolk to pick up their needles and get knitting in aid of a good cause.

HATS off to this charity challenge!

Kind-hearted volunteers are today urging the people of Suffolk to pick up their needles and get knitting in aid of a good cause.

Age Concern Suffolk is attempting to make 4,000 tiny woolly hats which will net the charity £2,000 to put towards its Caring Warmly fund, helping elderly people during the darker and colder winter months.

The appeal is part of a national initiative launched by companies Innocent Smoothies and Sainsbury's.

The hats will sit on smoothie bottles in shop refrigerators between November 7 and 21 and for each bottle sold, 25p will go to the charity.

The idea is that the hats will act as a reminder to shoppers of the difficulties many older people face when summer fades and the temperature drops.

Half of Age Concern's target has been achieved but the charity is desperate for help in completing the remaining 2,000 before the September 25 deadline.

Daphne Savage, chief executive at Age Concern Suffolk, said: “The more hats we make, the more money we can raise.

“It really is fun and relatively quick to do as the hats are so little.

“You can even send us bald hats and our volunteers will add the bobble!

“Anyone can make a hat for us and good knitters could use this opportunity to share their talents by teaching someone else how to knit with this easy little hat - and help a good cause.”

Nearly 90per cent of all excess winter deaths are of people over the age of 65.

Older people can be less resilient to cold-related illnesses, especially if they have existing health problems, and they are also the most likely to be unable to afford to heat their homes properly.

Knitters can get the simple pattern from Age Concern's office at 8 Northgate Street or by logging on to www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/thebigknit

The pattern only requires a small amount of double knitting wool.

Those who want to take part but are not keen to knit can donate wool and needles to Age Concern centres and charity shops.

Are you taking part in an unusual charity challenge? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

Did you know?

This year is the fifth knitting event of its kind. In 2006, more than £115,000 was raised through the project.

Knitting

One of the earliest known examples of knitting was finely decorated cotton socks found in Egypt in the end of the first millennium AD .

The first knitting trade guild was started in Paris in 1527 .

With the invention of the knitting machine , knitting by hand became a useful but non-essential craft.

Hand-knitting has gone in and out of fashion many times in the last two centuries, and at the turn of the 21st century it is enjoying a revival.