Every morning I have to do my chores before leaving for work (except for the days Mr.HeyLucy does them for me). I throw scratch down for the chickens and fill their feed bowl. I make sure the water dish is full, since it is uses by dogs, chickens, and bees. The dogs get food and my vegetable garden gets watered too. All while looking Farmgirl chic. This is my version of fashion week.

Sorry about that jumble below, I will have to fix that tonight for you so you can see the movie. Apparently, you can’t do any fancy HTML stuff from the phone.

In the meantime, how about some pretty new wallpaper for your desktop? I love changing my wallpaper regularly, and Smashing magazine is one of my favorite sources for fun and creative wallpapers. I also love the new monthly wallpapers at Design*Sponge, and just downloaded this month’s version in blue with the calendar. What about you? Do you have a favorite?

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/09/ds-desktop-wallpaper-for-september-lena-corwin.html

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/31/desktop-wallpaper-calendars-for-september-2009/

I’m on a mini blog vacation, but I’ll pop in now and then with the occasional picture or other item to share, starting with this little tilt-shift movie. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Helpless from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Yesterday I spent the day at the home of my friends Naz and Adam. Cary was there too, taking a much needed break from working hard on the road. Naz took Cary and I to her favorite massage place and we had a little pampering. I went for a little swim, and we cooked a delicious dinner. I hope you have a friend like Naz in your life. Everyone needs one.

Tonight I'm making sorrel soup, for the second time. It's going to be especially nice because I harvested a few Yukon Gold potatoes from my garden.

I think one of my little hens might have laid her first egg. There was a small, pretty grey-green egg in the coop today.

Is it silly to make accessories for my iPhone? I really will stop talking about it soon, but I thought I'd share one more little project. I may be teased for this, but it's really quite handy and also cute, so I will subject myself to the possibility of mockery. Say you want to watch something longer than your typical youtube video on your iPhone, like The Swell Season Tiny Desk Concert on NPR, for example. It isn't always very practical to have to hold onto your phone for 20 or 30 minutes. Especially if you are eating your lunch or knitting while enjoying the show.  I am not the first person to want a stand, and there are dozens of great ideas out there. I decided to coordinate with the pouch I made for my cords, and made a little beanbag chair for my phone:

It works just about anywhere, and took all of maybe five minutes to make. I used fabric I already had and half a bag of split peas from the cupboard, so even the cost was negligible.

Here's the quick how-to, should you realize that you, too, need a beanbag for your phone. Which I'm pretty sure you do.

Cut a 10" x 5" rectangle of fabric. Fold the fabric in half (right sides together), and sew the short edges. Sew one of the adjacent edges. For bonus cuteness, sew a little ribbon tab into one of the seams. You should have one open edge. Mark the middle of that edge, and bring the short edge seam to meet it. Sew, leaving a couple inches open for turnng and stuffing. Turn right side out, and press as best you can. Use a paper funnel, fill with beans or peas or rice. I used around half a one pound bag. It should be about 2/3 full. Stitch shut the rest of the opening sturdily by hand, and there you are!

I've been trying out some camera apps on my phone. I used one called Polarize for the picture above. Here's a nice list of free photography apps. I can't carry my big camera around with me every day, so I really want to be able to take some decent shots with my phone. It's fun to be able to upload them almost instantly, and now that I've got some fun apps for editing them, I'll be taking more and more.

It seems that every year around this time I get a little lackadaisical about blogging. I guess we all need a break now and then. It was a bit of a stressful week, since I had to spend a few days with my mother-in-law, but yesterday I engaged in a little fabric therapy, and worked on one of my current quilt projects. I feel much better now.

I thought I had made 204 three-piece triangles (200 and 4! that's a lot of triangles!), but I seem to be short a few. My wall is not quite big enough for the entire quilt, so the bottom three rows are on the floor. By the end of the day I was getting a little confused, so I decided to take a little break, and I think I'll start sewing rows together next weekend.

Meanwhile, it was time for a little iPhone accessorizing. I needed a small pouch for my charger and earphones, so I whipped up this little number, and I think it will be quite useful. The one complaint I have about my phone is that the battery charge doesn't last long at all, so I feel like I need to keep the charger with me at all times. Oh, wait, two complaints, the earphones are terribly uncomfortable, I need to get a new pair, preferably with a microphone.  Especially since I downloaded a couple sleep apps (SleepStream, Ambiance, and Sleep Machine Lite). I have the free versions, so when I decide which one I like best, I might just splurge for the paid version. It saved my from having to listen to a basset hound barking all night last week, which probably also saved the basset hound's life. Instead I listened to Tea Garden windchimes layered with a light rainfall, and drifted right off. Lovely!Do you iPhone users out there have any favorite apps to recommend? I'd love to hear about them!

Back to the pouch. I got the little clasp from the jewelry section of the craft store. I think it's for making a key ring. I would have preferred that the round hook be a small D-ring, but it works well enough as is. I made the lining a tiny bit longer so it was like a bit of piping around the edge. Of course I had to do a little applique on the back, just for fun.

Despite the fact that I may be blogging less this month, I am starting to get the hang of this twitter thing, so feel free to follow me, if you'd like. I'm not super interesting, but I'm working on it. That's another thing I love about my iPhone, I can tweet anytime, from anywhere! Blogging is a little harder, I am working on my phone camera skills and my phone typing skills.