An Exmouth gym is encouraging people to get active with their knitting needles to help raise money for Age UK.

Back in January, the owners of Exe Fitness started collecting donated knitted hats for the Big Knit project run by the Innocent smoothie drinks company.

The company decorates its bottles with the hats to appeal to shoppers, and donates 25p to Age UK for every behatted bottle sold. Buyers can keep the hats as decorations or send them back to the company to be resold for another donation.

The first 'hat' initiative took place in 2003, and now Innocent plans to do it again next year.

Exe Fitness are collecting hats knitted by people living in the local area, and will pass them on to the Exeter branch of Age UK, which will send them to Innocent and receive the 25p donations.

Co-owner Zoe Gray said: "We thought the project may be something people in the wider community would want to get involved with, as it's something positive they can do with the spare time people may have during this lockdown.

"We have had some pretty unique and interesting donations so far.

"Every knitted hat is important. Whether you can knit one, or knit loads - you'll be making a huge difference either way."

The knitted hats can be put through the letterbox at Exe Fitness, which is based at Unit 3, Victoria Way, Exmouth EX8 1EW.

Knitting and crochet patterns are available on the [Lhttp://www.thebigknit.co.uk/[L+]Innocent website[.L]