Churchill Mark IV Tank Tea Cosy

I was asked by a lady to design a Churchill Mark IV Tank Tea Cosy for the inaugural D Day commemorations, how could I refuse?

It has to be said that I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to military tanks. And I really wouldn't know a Churchill Mark IV Tank from a Churchill Mark II, or any other tank. So having looked at a few photos, I sat down to sketch a design.

I have knitted a tank tea cosy before, when I first started knitting tea cosies, but I hadn't had the foresight to write the pattern down. Anyway I think now that my approach to this tea cosy will be different and I think the tea cosy will look better for it.

So the main thing about the Churchill Mark IV Tank is that the tops of the caterpillar tracks are covered over and only has one gun, and I think the Mark II has two guns.

I think the main challenge with this tea cosy build is that a teapot is proportionally a bit taller than what you would like for a tank, and the way to compensate this would be to make the caterpillar tracks and undercarriage bigger, which would make the knitting less stable and weighty, and you don't want a saggy undercarriage. So I shall go as big as I dare, and it will look almost proportionate, but it won't be correctly to scale.

I think this will be a lovely tea cosy to commemorate D-day. I think it will be mainly knitted in Stylecraft DK Khaki, just wanted to give you a heads up in case you wanted to knit one too!













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