the crowd holds its breath

...and the winner of last week's hat of the week is.....

Herbert Hoodie knitted by the marvelous Rachel Phillips. Herbert stormed to victory pulling in no fewer than 1209 votes.

Rachel, you have our undying admiration and a place on the coveted plinth. Perhaps most excitingly of all there's a case of our finest making its way to you as we speak.

If you fancy knocking Rachel off the top spot then you know what to do. We've a huge target to make this year so please do keep sending in those hats, hooded or otherwise. Anyone searching for a source of inspiration can do much worse than having a look here at our Flickr Big Knit Pool. We think the Fortis Knitters could be in for a 'highly commended' ribbon when their hats arrive.

in which new south wales blows california out of the water.

In your face cute kids of busy bee knitting club. This week we received these little beauties in the post.

Twenty four splendid hats from Peta-Lee Burgess and Jan Garde of Blaxland New South Wales. For those of you trying to comprehend just how far these hats have travelled here's a handy visual aid in the form of our innocent foundation map (hats pictured bottom right)

 

Amazing. All that way, and during a postal strike. We're impressed, and are also awarding additional points for the usage of glittery wool. So, today we throw down the gauntlet. Can anyone out there beat that? Is it even geographically possible I wonder? We await the (eventual) arrival of the postman with baited breath.

Peta-Lee and Jan thank you, you are our official long distance knitting heroes of the week.

and the hat of the week goes to...

Last week, Pigtail Penny and Sunshine Sheila did battle for the coveted title of Hat of the Week.

Sunshine Sheila donned the yellow sunflower hat and using the broad rim and glowing centre, shone like the sun from her side of the ring.

On the other side, Pigtail Penny, with her lustrous brown locks and twinkling blue eyes, pulled out some street style drop kicks and the odd half nelson here and there.

The crowd were going wild, Penny and Sheila were locking hats until suddenly, Pigtail Penny went for the upper cut straight into the roundhouse move and whupped Sunshine Sheila into Tuesday. 

Congratulations to her trainer, Hazel from Watford, for helping Penny win Hat of the Week. A case of delicious smoothies are winging their merry way to you right now.

"knit, knit" "who's there"?

Why, it's the top three winners from last week's Big Knit competition.

Last week we ran a competition to win one of 100 very special Big Knit knitting kits.

To bag yourself one, all you had to do was complete this sentence:

'Knitting is my life because...'

We had over 500 entries, some of which were hatastic. Here's a little selection of the winning entries:

'Knitting is my life because I'm a sheep, and every year I get my coat nicked to help make little hats, but I don't mind because it's all for a good cause.'

'Knitting is my life because "I am a knitting needle and there isn't much else for a knitting needle to do except knit. I did enjoy a brief stint as a barbecue skewer but my heart wasn't in it. Surely you wouldn't want to deprive a knitting needle of their purpose in life?'

'Knitting is my life because I'm rubbish at Morris Dancing.'

Thanks to everyone who entered. Knitting kits are winging themselves Charlotte H, Pete W, Barbara C and all the lucky winners right now.

california dreamin'

 

It turns out that even tiny people in California are taking part in the Big Knit. Just check these guys out. Tracy sent us this snap of the Busy Bee Knitting Club, from Heritage Oak Elementary School in Roseville, California. Just look at their little faces and the joy knitting has bought them. Who needs surfing when there's knitting to be done? 

Busy Bee Knitting Club, thank you, we can't wait to get your hats.

the first Big Knit 'Hat of the Week' of 2009

Last week we officially reinstated the thrilling 'Hat of the Week' competition. Each and every week we'll select the crème of the woolly hatted crop and ask you to vote for your . Sort of like X Factor but without the premium rate phone calls. The winning hat will then take pride of place on the plinth in reception and the proud knitter will win a case of our finest drinks. Maybe there'll be some sort of grand hat-off in November. Who knows where it'll take us?  

Going head to head last week we had the Virtual Insanity Jamiroquai inspired hat from Alison of the 'Priddy Purlers' and the 'Majestic Mouse' from Mrs Joan Lockett. Who was first to the claim the coveted spot upon the plinth of purlfection? The crowd holds its breath. Presenting the winner of 2009's first Hat of the Week competition... 'Majestic Mouse'.

  

Well done Mrs Lockett. A case of our finest is on its way to you as we speak.  To vote on this weeks entries just click here. Dust off your needles and grab the nearest sheep. It's time to start knitting.

ready, steady, knit

Rich is wearing a scarf indoors, Emma has her hat on, the boys are looking confused, and the needles are clacking away like crazy. This can only mean one thing: Big Knit 2009 is here, and it's woolier than ever.

To kick things off here in fruit towers we held a 'wear your knits to work day' last week. A little strange to be wearing scarves and hats indoors on a summer's day but it was nice to get the needles out again and begin knitting some little hats. And if knit wear needs wearing indoors, we'll wear it. No questions asked.

In the evening we invited some of London's most amazing knitters round for a knitting based get together. There were sandwiches, cakes and tea (essential for an evening's knitting), and more wool than you could shake a sheep at, as well as a bunch of prizes on offer for the best hats knitted on the night. 

Fruit towers was bustling.

 

New knitters learned the ropes from experts.

Steve got some wool on his head.

 

Creations were admired.

 

The finest hats got paraded around the office.

 

And when it came to the vote, the decision was unanimous...

 

Jo's sweetcorn inspired creation and Iris' grapes hat were stand out favourites.

 

More than 100 hats were knitted in total, countless cups of tea drunk, and much fun had by all.

Welcome back Big Knit. We've missed you.

We're after your hats again so please get knitting if you've not already started - there's nothing quite like seeing bundles of hats arrive at our door.

And there'll be more details to follow soon. Watch this space.

hats it

Ok so we're running out of hat puns now. But just to tie up all things Big Knit like nicely we'd like to let you know the final scores on the doors which were...

A massive 506,768 little hats knitted (that's over half a million hand made hats, that's a lot of hats).

Meaning at 50p per hat we can give Age Concern a big fat cheque for £253,384.

And if you fancy helping to judge the best little knitted hat photos added to this year's Big Knit flickr group just pick your own favourites here (before Tue 23rd Dec).

pat 'the hat' rawcliffe

 

We had some special visitors today, of the knitting variety. 

The one and only Pat Rawcliffe - owner of the magical pair of hands that knitted this year's hat of the year - popped into fruit towers today with her three lovely friends Margaret, Marjorie and Bridget. There were many fine hats sent in this year, but there was only one knitter out there with the skill, vision and downright courage to knit a Ram With a Big Left Eye hat. Pat Rawcliffe, ladies and gentlemen - breaking down knitting barriers and purling her own path to the delight of us mere mortals. What a lady.

seeing double

This is the kind of thing that kept Mulder and Scully in a job for so long. It's the kind of thing that just defies belief. It's the stuff, we dare say, of Big Knit legend.

Sabine lives in Germany and is a big fan of our drinks, so when she visited England last week she was dead chuffed to see our little bottles wearing hats in Sainsbury's. By sheer coincidence though, and what really made her day, was seeing her favourite recipe sporting a miniature version of her own hat. She bought it straight away and sent us this picture.

We like stories like this. They make us smile. In fact, we haven't smiled this much since Del Boy fell over sideways in Only Fools and Horses, so if any of you crazy cats out there should happen to find miniature versions of your own hats, do send us a snap. We like a good smile.