Vintage Tractor Pattern

I can finally announce the winner of my "guess the next pattern" giveaway. Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved all of your guesses, and even if you were not right, perhaps you have given me some new ideas for other vehicles. I particularly like the idea of a snow plough, so you never know, maybe that will be what I work on next.

So we put the names of everyone who said tractor (and there were quite a lot of you) into a hat and the winner is Janet of Yellow Pink and Sparkly. I have sent you a message, so if you let me have your address (I won't publish it) through my comments box your Christmas Heart Decorations will be on their way to you.

Tractor before the mud guards are attached.

I think the tread pattern on the tyres were a bit of a clue. You might also have seen this post about my visit to the North Devon Show, where looking at the Vintage Tractors first gave me the idea.

This has been quite a tricky pattern to write. There has been unravelling, and a bit of frustration. Sometimes it is just like that, and for other patterns everything seems to just fall into place first attempt. The tyres took a lot of work, and I have had to devise my own codes for the cabling. It is a bit complicated, but I did feel that the cable on the tyres to give a deep tread was a really important part of the design. The other bits that caused me a bit of grief were the mud guards. They had to be big enough to curve over the back tyres, but also not so big as to be floppy. 

I also dithered over whether to add the chimney or not. This was partly because I thought it would need to have wire to keep it standing straight. But by making it not too big there is no wire, just wool, so this would still be safe for a child, and I think it does add something.

My two prototypes are for sale in my Etsy shop. My hope is that someone will buy them for a retired farmer, who wants to remember his many happy years on a tractor. 

The pattern is already available on ravelry and Etsy.