Using dark green White Buffalo yarn for MC and snow white Briggs & Little for CC, plus bits of grey/brown/red for the buffalo and maple leaf motifs.

Mods:

• knit in the round with a 4-stitch steek. Why purl stranded when you don’t have to? I am knitting all 4 stitches, vs. my usual purl edges, as this yarn is so thick it is easy to see the stitch definition, and I will sew and cut from the front.
• drop the front neckline a bit - did 2 short rows at the back at the start.
• did m1r and m1l increases as the kfb was leaving a funny purl bump when the colours changed. I found these increases were better off one stitch away from the marker, or with at least 1 stitch between the 2 increases at the seam.
• different fair isle motifs. Did the first one per pattern, then the third, then added a greek key from an old thunderbird jacket pattern.
• added 12 rows before splitting off for the pockets - 6 inches (18 rows) is way too high to start the pockets for me.
• 2 waist decreases 3 rows apart, then 2 increases after 8 rows. This doesn’t make for significant shaping - next time I would do at least one more decrease.
• body has red maple leafs for the pocket flaps and a charcoal and brown buffalo on the back. I was going to do a large and 2 small thunderbirds, but felt I should be true to my roots as a prairie girl from Winnipeg.
• I wasn’t going to do the front edging from the pattern, either the crochet line or the knit line, as the folded over edges would have looked nice with the zipper. Because I had the big white sections and have a 24 inch 2-way green zipper coming from Zipperstop, I thought it would look better with green up the fronts. Picking up 1 for 1 stitch is a bit wavy. Next time, pick up 3 for 4.

Sleeve: picked up 9 from cast-on stitches at underarm, and 2 gap stitches, which I decreased on the first row (38 st).
- decrease rows 8, 16, 24, 36 (end with 30 stitches). After motif, decreased 2 on green row. Switch needles and start ribbing, decreasing 4, so 24 for rib.

Buffalo:

• large is 37 stitches across by 27 rows. Too large.
• small is 25 stitches x 16 rows. Better fit, but not proportionate (looks long and narrow - added 2 more rows to be the same proportion as the large).

Maple Leaf:

• regular is 17 stitches wide and 21 rows
• small from Child pattern is 13 stitches wide and 14 rows
• pocket flap per pattern is 18 stitches wide, so do 19, so I have 3 MC on each side of the red leaf.
• for the pocket liners, I cast on 18 instead of 19, as I have the facing. 18 rows.

Where this sweater obsession came from: I’ve wanted to knit a Cowichan-style sweater for years. My Dad had a curling sweater with a buffalo on it (we are from Winnipeg, in the prairies). I accumulated all the White Buffalo yarn I could, then started with Briggs & Little. I also combed through Etsy for old patterns with charts of eagles, thunderbirds, totems, salmon, whales, etc. I found Jane’s pattern, which is knit top-down so that sealed the deal.