All good things

Finished within the confines of April: my April shawl, Dream Stripes.

Some of you may have knit this shawl, and you're no doubt thinking, "Huh. Mine doesn't look like that." And you're right. I messed up the lace pattern on the border. It's all sort of ... misplaced. But I messed it up consistently, and there's something to be said for that. I rather like the slight wonkiness it's given to the whole shawl.

And the colors are so fabulous - I did a spectacular job choosing the colors, if I may say so. The yarns are Knitpicks Stroll in Dandelion and Fiber Optic Yarns Foot Notes in Surf's Up, and I used a 4.5mm needle.

Dream Stripes is a terrific pattern; be sure to read the chart carefully. That's what I'll be doing, if I knit it again, which I might.

***

Today marks six years since I accidentally, while looking into the possibility of starting a blog, started a blog. I've had a hell of a lot of fun since then, and there are a lot of posts and projects here that I'm really proud of.

But I believe I'm finished with regular blogging. It's probably obvious - but for the last few months, I haven't been enjoying blogging as much as I used to. And that means I'm probably not much fun to read anymore, either. So today, my sixth blogiversary (gesundheit), I've decided to stop.

I'm going to leave the blog here for as long as Blogger will let me - and many thanks to Blogger for being such a great user-friendly platform. I may even pop back in and say something, or post a picture, once in a while. You never know. I certainly don't.

Thanks for reading, everyone. ♥

Advanced Knitting

Over the weekend, I knit up a baby sweater.

This is the Baby Bolero from One Skein, made with less than one skein of Cascade 220 in colorway Dammit I've Lost the Ballband, a lovely blue-grey. Darling, isn't it? This is for nobaby in particular; I just like knitting baby clothes, and also I kind of wanted to celebrate

FINISHING MY SHAWL.

I'm so pleased with this - it's absolutely gorgeous. The pattern is "Scarf with the No. 20 edging from The Knitted Lace Pattern Book, Thompson Bros., Kilmarnock, Scotland, 1850," from Victorian Lace Today; it took about a skein and a half of Knitpicks Gloss Lace in Fiesta, and I used 4.5mm needles. It's 72 inches long, 16 inches wide, 100% stunning. I can't stop looking at it.

The book lists it as Intermediate Lace, so I reckon I'm an Intermediate Knitter, because there wasn't a single thing about this shawl that I found difficult. (Except for paying attention, sometimes.) Actually, wait - if an intermediate pattern isn't particularly challenging, does that make me ... an advanced knitter?

Whoa. This is something to dwell on, while I knit some garter stitch this afternoon. (Hey, even an advanced knitter needs a break.)

There it is again. Beautiful. I am going to pack this in a Very Special Plastic Bag With No Sharp Edges, because this is definitely NOT going into the suitcase with everyone's socks and underwear. I mean please.

A couple of shawls

I haven't actually said this out loud yet, but one of the things I wanted to do this year was to knit a shawl every month. I decided this during January's Festival of Cowls, so January didn't get a shawl, and February didn't get one either due to bone-idleness on the part of the knitter.

The Wedding Shawl was supposed to be March's project, although it is overlapping well into April. I still expect to finish in time for the wedding; the announcement that the father of the bride may be wearing a Hawaiian shirt took the wind out of my sails for a couple of days (I knew it would be a casual wedding, which is cool, but I had no idea it would be that casual, and really? A shawl? Maybe I shouldn't), but in the end I decided to stick with my shawl because I really like knitting it. It's a more complicated project than I usually take on, and I might not have taken it on at all if not for the deadline to push me along - so I'm going to finish it, and wear it to the wedding, because I'm proud of it.

If it looks this good now, I can't wait to see it blocked.

Despite still knitting March's shawl, I did start April's shawl on time!

Cast on April 1, not mentioned in last week's post because it was still about the size of a taco chip. The pattern is called Dream Stripes, and the colors are making me feel all giddy about the onset of spring.

The wool fumes finally got to him

On Friday, El Fuego asked me to teach him to knit.

This is not an elaborate, belated April Fool's joke. He can cast on, and he's got the knit stitch down pat. Next up: purling, although he wants to work out his garter-stitch gauge issues first.

Here's his first swatch. I call it a bookmark; he calls it ... well, never mind. Not a bookmark. I think it looks great, and apparently El Fuego has a bit of the knitter in his soul; in what must be a world-record-setting moment, within 20 minutes of learning the knit stitch, he said to Miss Dashwood, "Hang on, let me finish this row."

He's working on his second practice swatch. It contains a small section he calls The Yarn Tumor, and we're not really sure what happened in that spot, but these things, they happen. I'm chuffed to bits that he wanted to learn, and glad I was able to overcome my deficiencies in the explaining-things department ("No, your other left!") well enough to teach him.

But you're going to have to get your own stash, darling. ♥

In my own knitting news, the Wedding Shawl is beginning to look like a shawl.

Back on track

Greetings! Lost the narrative thread a bit last week, which may be for the best, because I was also firmly stuck in the Doldrums. I just did not want to knit, or cross-stitch, or crochet, or anything, uggghh. El Fuego kept feeling my forehead and asking if I was all right.

But on Friday I found a cure for the Doldrums: being set loose in a fabulous yarn shop. "You'll feel better after you visit Temptations," El Fuego said. "And then we'll all go to Jeni's."

I'm pretty sure Jeni's was everyone else's reason for wanting to go to Dublin. If you've ever had Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, this will come as no surprise.

Still, awfully nice of them to wait patiently while I wandered around Temptations and touched everything. Here's what I bought ...

There's some Malabrigo Rastita in Volcan, and some Malabrigo Sock in Ochre (Horatio picked that, and requested a pair of socks, which I'm always happy to provide). There are two balls of silvery-grey Austermann Royal, and a ball of Noro Ayatori which is already being turned into a skinny scarf. Ayatori is newish, a wool/silk blend, and so soft and lovely that I must wear it around my neck.

I also bought a ball of Noro Koromo, and over the weekend it became a pair of Camp Out Fingerless Mitts. I absolutely adore them, just look at these colors. And how have I missed this pattern for so long?? Three years it's been out there, and I only just found it. It's so much fun, and perfect for Noro yarns. Knitting these, that's when my knitting mojo really came back. So long Doldrums, see you next year.

This morning, I finished my Sparkly Socklets. How cute are they? This is Knitpicks Stroll Glimmer in Parrot, plain vanilla socks knit on 2.75mm double points. I should probably wait for all this snow to melt before I attempt to wear them out of the house, though.

As for the Stuff I Want to Finish in March ... well, two out of three ain't bad. Unless something akin to a miracle occurs, I won't finish the Wedding Shawl before Easter, though I still hope to have it done by April 10 or so. But I finished a pair of socks, and I am definitely going to finish Periodic Tales before the week is out. I would have finished it already, only it was briefly dropped like a hot rock so I could read The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a beautiful little morsel of a novel that I devoured in fewer than 48 hours. I recommend dropping everything and going to the library, or the bookstore, or your nearest e-reader, to procure a copy. My brain is still sort of lingering in 18th-century Peru. (I do love a novel that sticks with you for a while.)

Cripes.

Not only did I completely miss the fact that it was Tuesday and I was supposed to be blogging ... but I just now realized my beef with the subtitle of Periodic Tales is all wrong. Obviously the subtitle should be "from actinium to zirconium."

I'm so embarrassed.

See you Tuesday.

Poor actinium, it gets no respect.

For your consideration: my new hat.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever knit a hat that suits me this well. It looks really, really good, and a part of me is thinking I need a bunch of these, in different colors. The pattern is the Cool Hat from Simply Knitting Issue 97, and the yarn is Aussi Sock in Sahara. My Difficult Ball of Sock Yarn, as explained in last week's post, but it did, in the end, make a smashing hat.

I have, as is traditional for me when the crafting gets a bit mad, created A Plan for getting things done. By the end of March, according to the list I made Sunday, I want to finish the Wedding Shawl, the Cool Hat (that's one thing checked off already!), a pair of socks (any pair, just pick one), and this book I'm reading about the elements. I'm kind of a sucker for the periodic table; it's so damn well organized, and each little block packs in a whole lot of information. I respect that. It's also rather colorful. The book is very interesting, and my only beef with it is that the subtitle should be "from actinium to zinc," but it's not a very big beef, really. Probably more people have heard of arsenic.

Headgear

Much better today, after a brief couch-nap-with-cat yesterday and a full night's sleep. Whew.

I did not break out the sewing machine, and even waited until today to fire up the iron.

Let's see, other than not sleeping well, what did I do last week? On Saturday, I knit a hat. A whole hat, with chunky yarn and 8mm double-points.

This is the Quick Cosy Hat from Issue 101 of Simply Knitting (the 8mm double-points came as a free gift with the magazine, thank you Simply Knitting!). The yarn is Knitpicks Cadena in Currant, rather less than a full skein. In the magazine, the hat looks kind of beret-like, but mine is more beanie-ish. I wonder whether I had gauge issues.

And on Sunday, I cast on a hat. Man, this yarn. Let me tell you about this yarn. I bought it about two years ago, enchanted by the neutral colors in the skein. It wasn't long before I wound it into a ball, where the colors were still enchanting, and started to knit it into a sock.

Suddenly I was disenchanted. The colors pooled, and badly. One side of the sock was all black and brown, the other side all grey and beige. I blamed the pattern, as I am wont to do, and ripped it out and tried another pattern. And another, and another. And then I put it away for a good year, before trying just one more pattern - which pooled. Badly. Just like all the others. There was clearly no way this yarn could ever be a sock.

Fine, I thought, I'll try a scarf. Nope - it pooled just as badly in scarf form as it had in sock form. Rrrrrgh. Fine. FINE. The ball can just sit here and look pretty forever, BE THAT WAY.

And then, on Sunday, I saw this hat pattern. I'd seen it before, of course, as it lives in a magazine that lives in my house, but this weekend I looked at the pattern and suddenly felt new hope for my Difficult Ball of Sock Yarn. A hat? Could it be a hat?

 Yes. It can be a hat.

Superwoman

I am running on two hours' sleep, a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee. And adrenaline, one assumes.

What is it about total exhaustion and a little caffeine that makes a person think she can conquer the world? I should be trying to squeeze in another couple of hours' sleep.

Instead, I am:

1. Contemplating getting out the sewing machine (talk me down! I can barely operate the blasted thing when I'm fully rested!)
2. Looking at the recipe for the soup we're going to have for dinner tonight (because I should totally cook that now, right? And reheat it later? That makes so much sense)
3. Thinking I should practice the guitar. And the ukulele. I can play "Let it Be" on the uke, you know. Over the weekend I heard a song that I thought I should try to figure out on the guitar, but I'm damned if I can remember now what it was.
4. Composing the pivotal scene of my midlife-crisis novel in my head, and should be writing it down, but I this is being hampered by
5. Writing a blog post about sleep?? I don't need no stinkin' sleep, I am going to solve all the world's problems right now, give me another cup of coffee and get out of the way. Because I also have the news on, and the world needs my warped sense of awesomeness right now to fix it.

With any luck I will pass out, drooling lightly with a cat draped about my person, on the couch before I decide I should call the President and offer my diplomatic services. And also before I get out the sewing machine.

Knitting with only one needle

Like Freddie Mercury, I'm only going slightly mad. The main problem is socks. I've been knitting them, a lot, but not in pairs.

I finished a Whitby last week, but didn't feel like starting the second one, so I whipped out a little sparkly socklet real quick.

And then I didn't feel like starting the second sparkly socklet, either, so I cast on a lovely bright pink Hedgerow, and then last night I suddenly found myself knitting the toe of a Chimaera whilst watching the Top Gear blokes work out that, yes, you can play rugby in a Kia Cee'd. (The Cee'd is also pretty good if you're a sodium and eel salesman.)

There is also this, which doesn't look like much yet, but lace never does at first.

This is the shawl I'll be wearing to the wedding in April, if I stop fooling about with not-pairs of socks and finish it in time. The pattern, from the gorgeous book Victorian Lace Today, goes by the melodic name of "Scarf with the No. 20 edging from The Knitted Lace Pattern Book, Thompson Bros., Kilmarnock, Scotland, 1850."

I think I'll call it the Wedding Shawl.

Mardi Gras

For the last week or so, all I've been able to think about (craftwise, anyway) are the three hundred projects I'd rather be knitting than the ones I have in progress right now. So in the spirit of the day, I had a strawberry paczki for breakfast and cast on a scarf.

The astute (read: nerdy) among you will recognize the slightly-washed-out colors here: it's a Doctor Who scarf. It's the good Doctor's 50th anniversary, so this is the year I will finally knit the scarf, after talking about it since, like, 2006.

It's supposed to be a good-sized scarf, 12 inches wide and 13 or 14 feet long, so I happily cast on 50 stitches (for the 50th anniversary - because I like my cast-on numbers to mean something - don't make it weird) and knit the first purple stripe. Then I stopped and measured, and decided two things.

1) It was 11 inches wide. Eleven is definitely not twelve.

2) It was HUGE. Look, Tom Baker is a tall gentleman with lots of curly hair, he can get away with a foot-wide scarf. I am considerably shorter than he is, though I can definitely take him on in the "lots of curly hair" department, and I'm just going to look silly in a foot-wide scarf.

So as long as the scarf was already not 12 inches wide, with the 50 stitches, I decided to make it a bit narrower still. I unraveled it and cast on 41 stitches (because I'm 41, so everyone will know it's mine and I knit it this year) (yes), and knit the purple stripe again. It was much better, about 9 inches wide now (and Nine is my favorite Doctor, so this is a big win), so I carried on with the beige stripe. Well, with a few rows of the beige stripe. And then the buzzer on the dryer went off, so I stopped for a while.

I did do something this week other than have strange thought processes about sci-fi accessories. For instance, I finished my Honey Cowl.

Gorgeous! Unblocked, of course, but I'll get around to that, hopefully before this weekend when the Arctic Blast the Weather Channel is predicting shows up. The yarn is Knitpicks Wool of the Andes Tonal* in Deep Waters, and the needles were 6mm. This really is a spectacularly fun and beautiful pattern, you should knit one right away.

Last but not least: a couple of posts ago, I mentioned knitting a wrap for a wedding we'll be going to in April. Well, I still will do, but not that wrap. Over the weekend I bought a skirt for the wedding, and the skirt is definitely not going to support any of the gorgeous colors in that particular ball of yarn.

It will, however, support this color. How long has this been in my stash, waiting for me to need a red wrap? I don't even remember. Hurray for yarn, it's so much more patient than I am.

* Knitpicks website is refusing to show me Wool of the Andes Tonal. I hope it isn't discontinued.

Same time next week

No new picture of Sallah; it looks pretty much the same, a bit bigger than last time. Haven't been working on it the last couple of days, if I'm honest, because Saturday afternoon I cast on the Honey Cowl again.

Mmm, much better. The fabric feels just right, and this pattern makes a person a bit giddy. After four or five rounds it's quite a rush. Look, I've almost finished the first skein of yarn; time to wind the second one into a ball and have it ready to go!

Also: half a Whitby sock. This has been on my List of Stuff to Knit since approximately the dawn of time, and finally, here it is, being knit, when I am able to put down the Honey Cowl for a moment or two. Always good to have a sock on the needles, even when I'm in the midst of a cowl obsession.

Since I've been showing up at the blog approximately once a week anyway, I've decided to make it official and be a Tuesday Blogger. (I make that sound like it's really a thing.) See y'all back here on the 12th!

Starting, stopping, starting

All I've done for the last week or so is cast on, decide I don't like the way it's going, pull it apart, and cast on something else.

I cast on a Honey Cowl, but it was slow going because my left thumb was killing me. I finally realized my left thumb was killing me because I was using too small a needle; the fabric was tight enough to be bulletproof.

I hated to frog something that looked this beautiful, but it was the right thing to do. It will look more beautiful when it drapes, rather than standing up by itself.

Then I cast on a wrap with this little morsel of deliciousness.

Again: too small a needle. I frogged it after about 20 rows. Honestly, from now on when my brain says "You should use these needles!" I'm going to select needles two sizes larger, just on general principles. Still, I liked the pattern, the yarn is fabulous, and I want that wrap for a wedding we'll be attending in April, so you'll be seeing this stuff again soon. On larger needles.

Finally, a winner:

The most fun thing about this pattern is that you knit the right-side rows with a 3.75mm needle, and the wrong-side rows with a 6mm needle. I don't think I'll be frogging this one, it's fantastic! The pattern is Sallah, by the way. Another cowl, naturally, yay for cowls!

Neckwarmers

Just in time for the bone-cracking cold that rolled in overnight, I've finished this:

 London Cowling, a lovely warm thing that will protect your neck (and most of your face, and your ears if you arrange it just so and kind of scrunch up your shoulders) from below-zero wind chills. So much fun to knit that there may be another one in my future, just because. Yay for cowls! My first London Cowling was knit on 5.5mm needles with KnitPicks City Tweed DK in Porpoise.

And last week, while we were between cameras*, I finished up this charming little stashbuster:

Josephine, a fun garter-stitch scarf/shawl/depends how much yarn you have and how big you want to make it. Mine is more of a scarf, and was knit on 4.5mm needles with some leftover sock yarn bits. The purple/yellow is KnitPicks Sock Garden in Pansy; the green/tan is KP Sock Memories in Cape Cod; the blue/yellow is also Sock Garden, in Morning Glory. Sock Garden and Sock Memories are long since discontinued, but both were 100% non-superwash wool, so I wanted to knit the leftovers up into one project rather than mixing them in with superwash wools. You know, so everything has the same washing instructions. And I'm glad I didn't convince myself that the colors don't go together, because 1) I love the way this turned out, and 2) of course they do.

* The old one finally gave up the ghost, and we bought a new one over the weekend. I'm still getting used to the new one, or it's getting used to me, or something. Please stand by!

Ripple

A big blanket in chunky yarn: just the thing to work on in January.

The bigger it gets, the warmer you are while you crochet it (this is why I didn't work on it even a little bit over the summer); and by the way, the cats would appreciate it if you'd stop flipping the damn thing over every ten minutes, they're trying to sleep here.

So there's Ripple, all finished and very, very cozy. It's about 8 feet long and four and a half feet wide - lovely to wrap up in by yourself, but also big enough to spread out and cover all the humans and felines on the couch. I used an 8mm hook, and 8 balls of Lion Brand Homespun - two balls each of Windsor, Mediterranean, Quartz, and this nice bright lavender that I lost the labels for and it appears to be discontinued so I can't tell you what it's called.

Fawkes in socks

Two weeks into the new year, I finally have a finished object to show off.

Fawkes socks completed! They are fabulous. The yarn is Sereknitty, from KnitCoreBuffalo, in the Dumbledore colorway; the needles were, as always, 2.75mm.

I finished up the second sock last night during "Downton Abbey," and the only reason it took me this long is that I have been trying to knit everything in the world, as reported last week. On Saturday it finally occurred to me that if I work on one project at a time, I can finish that project and move on to the next project*, so I buckled down on the socks. Next project: Ripple, for which there is one more ball of allotted yarn. I can turn a ball of Homespun into a stripe of Ripple in a mere two hours. TWO HOURS. I could be working on London Cowling tomorrow if I play my cards right.

This is my third pair of Fawkes; it really is a fantastic pattern, fun to knit, and surprisingly easy to memorize. It just makes so much sense, once you get a good look at what it's doing, and if you're the least bit interested in knitting socks I recommend you have a look at it right away.

 * This will not last long. I'm enjoying the momentum while I've got it.

Knitting again

My arm was better by Sunday morning, so I cast on the second Fawkes sock, and knit two pattern repeats over the course of the day. And then Sunday night, "Downton Abbey" was on, and I spent two happy hours watching that and working on my Ripple blanket (remember?).

Since then, I have, a bit, fallen victim to yay-for-knitting-I-want-to-knit-everything-in-the-world-right-now, which is something I'm prone to at the beginning of January. I've cast on a London Cowling, twice (the fabric was too loose the first time, bleah), and I think I may finally knit a Honey Cowl, because I got perfect yarn for it for Christmas and also yay for cowls!, and this morning I sat on the floor for 45 minutes and cranked out a mug cozy.

There's an owl on it. I love it. I could get three more out of this ball of yarn (which is KnitPicks Cadena, by the way, in Seraphim), and I might do, because this one is kind of big and only fits on this mug. This is my favorite tea mug (it's half-full of cinnamon tea in that picture), so that's fine, but if I knit it again on smaller needles it would fit on my Morning Coffee Mug, the mug in which I must have my morning coffee or else the whole day is ruined. The mug cozy pattern is by Tanya Antonova, and features in Mollie Makes Issue #21.

Saturday

When I woke up this morning, my left hand was all numb. I figured I'd just slept funny on it, and waited for the feeling to come back.

I'm still waiting. Some internet research indicates I've either strained a nerve (probably a repetitive motion injury), or it's a stroke, or cancer. Frankly I'm going with the repetitive motion injury, which means I have to rest my left hand today. This means no knitting, of course, and that's a bummer because I wanted to start my second Fawkes sock.

Here's the first one (paired with a Doctor Who knee sock - you're mixing your universes, Peach). My friend Pinky gave me this gorgeous yellow-gold yarn for Christmas, and the colorway is called Dumbledore - it had to be Fawkes socks! The yarn is so squishy and lovely. I want to knit, dammit.

But all is not lost - I've been embroidering instead. Embroidery is an entirely right-handed technique for me; all my left hand has to do is hold the hoop, which doesn't appear to be a problem. (I probably ought not to be typing.)

Check out Hammy Hamster! I started him a few days ago, and finished him this morning. Darling. This is Mollie Johanson's pattern, from Issue 21 of Mollie Makes. 

Now to find something else to embroider. Or maybe I'll read, or have a cup of tea, or have a cup of tea and then doze off while reading. I love Saturdays.

And two to end the year on.

First, here's a project I've never mentioned on the blog - probably out of fear that I wouldn't keep up with it, and then would have to publicly admit I'd given up. I surely didn't want to do that. But here it is, December 31, and I did keep up with it and now it's done and I love it!

Check it out: the 2012 Weather Scarf.

One garter ridge representing the weather for each day of the past year. I kept it simple and just recorded the predominant weather; if it was cloudy and windy, and then it started to rain, whichever of those  impressed me most got the weather stripe that day. The colors mostly made sense: white for snow, silvery-grey for wind, dark grey for overcast, blue for rain, yellow for sun, orange for hot (yes, hot is weather) (in my mind), purple for thunderstorms, pink for ice or freezing rain, pale blue for sleet or wintry mix, lavender for fog. And there were two days - one in January, one in December - where it was just straight-up foggy all day. I also set aside a nice kelly green for tornadoes, but am very happy to report I didn't have to use it, though we had a close call on March 2.

It all started with a knitalong on Ravelry - if you're a member, head on over and check out everyone's weather scarves. We each took the idea and ran in our own direction with it; some knitters recorded the temperature, some recorded the weather but in a different way than I did, all look terrific. This was a great project, and though I'm not doing it again for 2013, I will almost certainly do it again some year!

And, to round out the year, a bit of applique.

This is Poppy Treffrey's applique pattern, from Issue 19 of Mollie Makes magazine. She machine-appliqued hers, but y'all know about me and The Machine ... it intimidates me, so I decided to do this project by hand. It was a lot of fun to make, and there is definitely more applique in my future; I'm already thinking about what I need to do next. Typewriter! Camera! Aston Martin DB9!

I have the perfect spot for it, too. Here's an unattractive feature in my kitchen: the old phone jack, which is for some reason surrounded by miles and miles of plastic. It's right next to the spice rack, mocking me.

Not no more it ain't. You can still see the top of the plastic thingy, particularly if you're tall, or far away - I'd have needed an unnaturally large frame to cover the whole thing - but this is a huge improvement, and I'm very happy with it. I can cook tonight's year-ending meatloaf and mashed potatoes in peace.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Finished Objects 2012

• 2012 Weather Scarf
• Citron
• A Not-Grey Loop
• Neapolitan Ripple
• Afternoon Tea
• Christmas in Tallinn
• School Spirit socks
• Lacy Baktus
• Pretty Cute
• Koopa Village Blanket
• Vanilla Latte socks
• Big Woolly Jumper
• The Travelling Pi Shawl
• Age of Brass and Steam
• Strata of the Human Condition
• Tore V.
• Alpaca Gloves
• Peachy the Short
• Long Tall Peachy
• Chroma
• Etta
• Maroon 5 socks
• Floral Tea Cosy
• Fibonacci scarf
• Matilda
• Rudy Got Sole
• London Calling
• Otto der Tanzer socks
• Mockery socks
• Lavalette
• Fluted Rib Scarf
• Jazz socklets
• Sokath socks
• Jesse
• Mustard Pickle
• Chocolate Beanie
• Cooey the Pigeon
• Celtic Cable Neckwarmer