Yoga Mat Roll-up

Check it out! Busy as I am, I somehow managed to find the time to create this handy little gadget for my yoga mat. I signed up to take a yoga class at school ($5 a class! How could I resist?), and I realized that I had no good way of carrying my mat. I'm also somewhat averse to the idea of a drawstring yoga mat bag because it makes me think of trying to stuff a rolled up sleeping bag into it's carrying bag. Granted, a yoga mat is probably less prone to explosion than a sleeping bag, but I wanted to try something different. So here's what I came up with.

Here's the outside, for which I used a nice chocolate brown corduroy fabric that's been hanging around for a while. I actually bought it intending to make a skirt out of it but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked. You can see the three buttons on the outside, but you can't see the elastic loops on the top edge very well in this picture. And then there's a wide blue shoulder strap sewn in between the outer and inner fabrics.

Here's what the inside looks like. It's just a solid blue cotton that I happened to have on hand (and happened to match the strapping that I had). The little buttons you see in this picture are anchors for the buttons on the outside to help them support the strain of the elastic loops, which you can see on the bottom edge in this picture.

So the idea is I put the roll-up thingydo flat like this, stick my rolled up mat on top, fold over the top edge and then the bottom edge and hook the elastic loops around the buttons.

And then, I get this. I was a little bit paranoid about the mat slipping through since there's no bottom, but it worked out just fine. The key is to make sure the buttons are placed far enough from the edge so that the elastic is pretty taught when looped around them.

And, a bit of wedding news before I go... Cale and I are going to the Berkshires (the mountains in western Mass) this weekend to look at wedding venues! And by this weekend, I mean today. As in, we're picking up the rental car in 2.5 hours (gee, maybe I should get off the computer and finish packing...). My parents, my mom's sister, and my 14-yr old cousin (the daughter of another of my mom's sisters) are all joining us for the weekend. I'm excited and I think it's going to be great fun, but I just home it doesn't get too crazy with so many different people (and opinions!)