KNITTERS are primed with their needles at the ready to help out with a charity challenge to knit 28,000 woolly hats.

The hats are needed to top Innocent Smoothie bottles as part of a campaign with Age UK this winter.

People in Oxfordshire have launched the second phase of this year's Big Knit challenge at a party last week in Headington to get started on the hats.

Kath Pease from Thame cot to work on the woolly hats, she said: "Originally I have knitted blankets for the Blue Cross and Battersea Dogs Home but I saw a leaflet for this and thought I would join in.

"I knitted three hundred little hats last year."

In the first phase Age UK Oxfordshire managed to send about 8,700 hats off thanks to the county's dedicated knitters.

The charity is calling on people to help knit hats, which will be sold on the juice bottles with a percentage coming back to the charity.

For more information on knitting patterns and where to send donations see http://bit.ly/2iiZAmg