For those of you waiting for Part 7, it’s a quick one! I finished my Esmerelda earlier this week, so I’ll be posting the last instructions, Part 8, sometime soon!
Part 7: Right Sleeve Trim
Work sleeve trim as for Part 5.
Fri 16 Oct 2009
For those of you waiting for Part 7, it’s a quick one! I finished my Esmerelda earlier this week, so I’ll be posting the last instructions, Part 8, sometime soon!
Part 7: Right Sleeve Trim
Work sleeve trim as for Part 5.
Fri 18 Sep 2009
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up, Part 5 can be found here, and here are links to Part 4, Part 3, Part 2, and Part 1. You can find all of the instructions together on Ravelry in the Fiber Fiends group here. And you can find photos of my Esmerelda-in-progress on flickr here.
Now, on to Part 6, the Right Sleeve!
Right Sleeve
Place 20 (28, 27, 36, 34, 43, 42) held sts onto DPNs. Pick up and knit 31 (28, 34, 33, 40, 38, 44) sts. Knit 8 (4, 5, 17, 18, 14, 15) held sts in stockinette stitch. Place mkr, work Centered Cables pattern once, place mkr. Work remaining sts on holder in stockinette stitch. Rearrange 51 (56, 61, 69, 74, 81, 86) sts evenly onto DPNs.
Rnd 1: Work in pattern as established.
Rnd 2: K until mkr, m1R, sl mkr, work Centered Cables pattern, sl mkr, ssk, k to end of rnd.
Work Rnd 1 and Rnd 2 alternately. Decrease every 12th (10th, 10th, 8th, 8th, 7th, 6th) rnd 7 (10, 9, 13, 13, 16, 19) times. Sizes 30 (38, 42, 50): Decrease 1 st every 12th (10th, 8th, 7th) rnd once. 36 (36, 42, 42, 48, 48, 48) sts.
Decrease Rnd: K until 2 sts before mkr, k2tog, work in patt until 2nd mkr, sl mkr, ssk if on Rnd 2, ssk third and fourth sts after mkr, k to end of rnd.
All Sizes: Work in pattern until sleeve measures 17.25 (17.5, 17.75, 18.25, 19.25, 19.75, 20.25)” / 44 (44.5, 45, 46.5, 49, 50, 51.5) cm, or 1″ / 2.5 cm less than desired length, rearranging sts on DPNs as necessary.
Here’s a photo of my Esmerelda (Ravelry pattern link) through Part 7.

You can find more photos on flickr here.
Wed 16 Sep 2009
The Corsica pattern errata has just been updated both at FiberFiend.com and on Ravelry. If you purchased the pattern as a Ravelry download you should have automatically received a link to download the updated version.
In other news, be on the lookout for Esmerelda Part 6, the Right Sleeve, in the next few days! I just worked the last decrease on my sample’s right sleeve, so hopefully I’ll get in a photo to show you as well.
Wed 2 Sep 2009
Aaaaaaand the winner is…….Jeanine Militello! (Who apparently has a Husky who looks remarkably like Siena.) She chose Corsica (Ravelry link) as her favorite pattern. Random.org picked number 6 (I took R out of the running)! Thank you to those of you who became fans of my Facebook page and entered the contest. Look for more pattern giveaways here on my blog, on Facebook, in the Ravelry Fiber Fiends Group, and on Twitter in the future!
Mon 31 Aug 2009
As I started working on Part 6 of Esmerelda (the right sleeve), I realized that I forgot to write out the decrease round instructions for Part 4 (the left sleeve), so I just added those to Part 4. I hope that wasn’t too confusing for anyone. As always, you can find all the parts together in the Fiber Fiends Ravelry Group forum here.
Fri 28 Aug 2009
Part 5 is a quick one, after a long Part 4… AND as a bonus and perhaps an incentive for some of you, I have photos of my finished sleeve for show and tell!
NEW ABBREVIATIONS:
C2B: Sl next st to cable needle, hold to back of work, k1, k1 from cable needle.
C2F: Sl next st to cable needle, hold to front of work, k1, k1 from cable needle.
Baby Honeycomb Cable & Rib (worked in the rnd over 6 sts):
Rnd 1: C2B, C2F, p2.
Rnd 2: K4, p2.
Rnd 3: C2F, C2B, p2.
Rnd 4: As 2nd rnd.
Left Sleeve Trim:
Work rnds 1-4 of Baby Honeycomb Cable & Rib pattern 6 (6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8 ) times around sleeve. Work rnds 1-4 of pattern again. Bind off in pattern.
And now, to present my Esmerelda through Part 5…
You can see more photos in the flickr set here.
If you haven’t caught up, or you don’t know what’s going on, you can find Part 4 here, Part 3 here, Part 2 here and Part 1 here! You can find it all together on the Ravelry Fiber Fiends Group forum here!
Also, don’t forget the Facebook Page Pattern Giveaway! If you haven’t entered yet, all you have to do is head on over to the FiberFiend.com Facebook page, become a fan, and tell me what your favorite FiberFiend.com pattern is for a chance to win before September 1st!
Last night we had another Veggie Box Co-Op dinner. Spinnity, her husband, Seltsame, R and I get together every other week at either Spinnity’s house or my house and try to use up veggies from our CSA boxes from Two Small Farms. It was Spinnity’s idea, and R suggested we invite Seltsame to have more eaters than we would normally have, so we tend to use up more veggies, since it’s hard to use them all up in any given week with just 2 people. Whoever hosts makes the main dish, and the other couple brings a side dish or salad. Seltsame brings something to round out the meal. This week, I made beans and greens, stuffed hot peppers (stuffed with cheddar cheese, raisins, and almond slivers), corn bread, and asian pear pie with asian pears from my garden. Spinnity brought a delicious turnip side dish. And Seltsame brought some wine. I didn’t remember to photograph until dessert, but there were a few stuffed peppers left, and of course, the pie!
Asian Pear Pie (made from my aunt’s apple pie recipe)

Of course they insisted on taking a photo of me and my pie…

Thu 13 Aug 2009
It’s time for a pattern giveaway! I’ve decided to host a pattern giveaway on my FiberFiend.com Facebook page.
Here’s what you have to do to enter: Become a fan of the FiberFiend.com Facebook Page. Leave a comment on the wall with your favorite FiberFiend.com pattern before September 1st to win!
On September 1st, I’ll choose a random number from all the comments as the winner (repeat comments will be deleted so each person only has one entry). That winner will get any pattern of their choice from FiberFiend.com.
Good Luck!
-Margit / Fiber Fiend
Wed 12 Aug 2009
I have bad news and good news. The good news is that I cast on my own Esmerelda a week ago and have caught what I believe to be all the mistakes in the pattern so far, and from now on, I’ll be knitting and designing the instructional steps before I release the new instructions, so Parts 4 through the end should be error-free. I also have Part 4, the left sleeve, for you today. The bad news is that when I finished knitting Part 3, I tried on my shrug and the armholes seemed a bit tight. I have skinny little arms, and I needed help to get the shrug off, so I measured and calculated, and decided that I needed to rip back the 3.5″ of the back piece that I had knit so that I could cast on more stitches for the underarms. I had followed a simple top-down raglan recipe that called for casting on 1″ of stitches for the underarms for all sizes, and that leaves the armholes undersized in all sizes. I’ve done all the calculations so that the armholes come out to the proper sizes, and the corrected instructions are at this link. I’ve also made minor corrections to the instructions for Parts 1 and 2. The total number of rows worked was off on Part 1, and Part 2 was missing a purl row (WS) before starting the cable pattern (RS).
And now on to Part 4!
NEW ABBREVIATION:
DPNs: Double-pointed needles
I measured my cable pattern gauge, and got one pattern repeat, 16 sts by 24 rows = 2″ unstretched, 3″ lightly stretched wide, by 3 3/4″ long.
Centered Cables (worked in the rnd over 16 sts, as on sleeves):
Rnd 1 (RS): K1, p2, (k2, p2) 3 times, k1.
Rnd 2 (RS): K1, p2, (k2, p2) 3 times, k1.
Rnd 3: T8B rib, T8F rib.
Rnd 4: As 2nd rnd.
5th to 14th rnds: Rep 1st and 2nd rnds 5 times.
Rnd 15: T8F rib, T8B rib.
Rnd 16: As 2nd rnd.
17th to 24th rnds: Rep 1st and 2nd rnds 4 times.
Left Sleeve
Place 20 (28, 27, 36, 34, 43, 42) held sts onto DPNs. Knit 8 (4, 5, 17, 18, 14, 15) sts in stockinette stitch. Place mkr, work Centered Cables pattern once, place mkr. Work remaining sts on holder in stockinette stitch. Pick up and knit 31 (28, 34, 33, 40, 38, 44) sts. Rearrange 51 (56, 61, 69, 74, 81, 86) sts evenly onto DPNs.
Rnd 1: Work in pattern as established.
Rnd 2: K until 2 sts before mkr, k2tog, sl mkr, work Centered Cables pattern, M1L, sl mkr, k to end of rnd.
Work Rnd 1 and Rnd 2 alternately. Decrease 2 sts every 12th (10th, 10th, 8th, 8th, 7th, 6th) rnd 7 (10, 9, 13, 13, 16, 19) times. Sizes 30 (38, 42, 50): Decrease 1 st every 12th (10th, 8th, 7th) rnd once. 36 (36, 42, 42, 48, 48, 48) sts.
Decrease Rnd: K until 4 sts before mkr, k2tog, work in patt until 2nd mkr, sl mkr, M1L if on Rnd 2, ssk, k to end of rnd.
All Sizes: Work in pattern until sleeve measures 17.25 (17.5, 17.75, 18.25, 19.25, 19.75, 20.25)” / 44 (44.5, 45, 46.5, 49, 50, 51.5) cm, or 1″ / 2.5 cm less than desired length, rearranging sts on DPNs as necessary.
Hopefully I’ll have a photo of my Esmerelda to share with you soon! (And all those other photos I promised to share!)
Mon 15 Jun 2009
Daebee noticed that the Part 3 instructions I posted for Esmerelda last week started with the wrong side (right instead of left). I just corrected them, including switching the stitch counts around, because those were correct. See this post for the updated instructions. Since I’m not knitting the shrug as I’m designing it, and I’m used to designing things bottom-up instead of top-down, I got confused about which side you end up on after finishing a WS row. Sorry about that!
In other news, I went to Sheetal‘s wedding over the weekend. It was lots of fun, and she looked amazing. The only bad part was that it was an outdoor wedding and right as she she started down the isle, the sky opened up and dumped profuse amounts of rain down on us, and continued to do so throughout the ceremony. R and I found shelter under a tree just behind the seating area, where we kept mostly dry and still had a decent view. There was a lovely lunch afterwards, and then a nice gap during which Spinnity and I (and our spouses) walked to a LYS (where I picked up 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in a creamy color) and then I got to take a nap (because I was up until 3am the night before finishing knitting Sheetal’s stole for her evening outfit) before speeches, dinner, and dancing in the evening. It was a super quick weekend, with lots of time spent on planes and in airports (our flight last night was delayed 1 1/2 hours so we spent about 5 hours in Dallas), but it was definitely worth the trip! I’ll have to share some photos of the wedding, and of Italy… soon, I promise!
Mon 8 Jun 2009
Big apologies to those of you out there who have been patiently waiting for the next installment! Here it is! You can also find it on the Ravelry Fiber Fiends group discussion page, along with photos of other people’s shrugs-in-progress. You can find Esmerelda on Ravelry here.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Esmerelda, it’s a top-down shrug I’m designing as a knit-a-long for the Fiber Fiends Ravelry group, and I’m also posting the installments here on my blog. This is the third knitting installment, which involves putting the sleeve stitches on holders and working the back section. You can find yarn requirements here, the first knitting installment here, and the second installment here.
Back
Work 9 (11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 18) left front sts in stockinette stitch. Place next 20 (28, 27, 36, 34, 43, 42) sts on holder for left sleeve. Use backward loop method to cast on 20 (17, 23, 22, 29, 27, 33) sts. Work 39 (49, 51, 59, 63, 70, 73) back sts in stockinette stitch. Place next 20 (28, 27, 36, 34, 43, 42) sts on holder for right sleeve. Use backward loop method to cast on 20 (17, 23, 22, 29, 27, 33) sts. Work remaining 8 (12, 11, 15, 14, 18, 17) sts in stockinette stitch. 96 (106, 120, 132, 150, 160, 174) sts on the needles. Work in stockinette stitch for 3.5” / 9 cm, or until piece measures 10 (10.5, 11, 11.5, 12, 12.5, 13)” / 25.5 (26.5, 28, 29, 30.5, 32, 33) cm.
The sleeves will be up next!