Not Good Enough For A Swap But Good Enough For Me?

Mere weeks ago I was reflecting on how I put so much effort into things for swaps but not the corresponding amount into things for myself. Whizz forward to today and I added the bias binding to a fabric bowl intended for the sewing room swap. Bias binding and I are not exactly well known for our accords.

FFS. Looks awful. I immediately thought "it's no good for the swap but I can use it as a thread catcher since I needed one anyway". Which, yes, that is better than throwing it away because from a practical point of view it's fine, but (with a stamp of my little foot) I want nice things too!

This is what I think I deserve to make myself nice ones of:
1. Thread catcher
2. Shoulder bag
3. At least one fabric basket for the coffee table (since at the moment stuff is sprawled all over it)
4. Tool basket/tray for sewing machine area (because ditto)
5. Pincushion ring/bracelet (because I keep sticking them in the sofa and then sitting on them)

Meanwhile I have the stuff for another fabric bowl and once it is complete I'll add a how-to-and-not-to-make post for it here.

As an aside, it snowed in Tokyo yesterday - all day non-stop. It was rather exciting as it was very fine snow the like of which I can't remember seeing since before I moved to London so probably about 20 years ago. We ventured out for american style pancakes with maple syrup (god bless Vermont) in the morning but then burrowed into the sofa for the rest of the day. By bedtime it had settled to about 8" deep on the branches outside so I assume it was the same on the ground.

During the day the birds were not at all happy and kept kicking up clouds of it to get at the food I'd put out that morning as usual. When they came to have a look inside to see what we were doing, as they like to, they left little divots in the snow balanced on the rail. So sweet!