Author’s Note: I wrote this out a long time ago, before I came up with the original TOAST (Think of a Something Thursday) format. We’ve come a long way, baybee!

TOAST: Think of a Something Thursday

Long before I acquired my stable of shopping bags, and when I bothered to remember, I’d tell a store clerk trying to bag one or two items: “No thank you”. A habit borne of managing to accumulate too much junk (which I still do, adventure-girl/packrat that I am) but a habit that also fit in nicely with the Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

When I was a kid, the grocery stores in my area were dominated by paper sacks. And that was it for a long time. They were great, useful - book covers, art papers, shipping paper, patterns, “canvas”. When plastic bags started coming around along with the advent of “bag your own” stores in my neck of the woods, the bags were your typical two handled affair seen today. Us kids adapted and used them to make simple box kites. Tie a string, find a gust of wind, and go. No sticks, no tails, no tape and paper and glue … But no sharks teeth or dragons, either. Nothing to paint or enhance. I think after one or two gos we were done and bored.

I started out my latest foray into self-bagging and non-plastic bagging like I do most things. In fits and spurts. (The hub asked me the other day how long my to-do list was. I asked in return, “which volume?”.) But I rounded up a sampling of totes I had anyway (I prefer simple totes instead of most diaper bags) along with the inexpensive reusable bags I mentioned the other day.

Surely there was one perfect bag to hold my ‘fancy’ cheeses, wines, crusty loafs of bread, and swirly pops for the kids, right? Be it a quick trip for a parents-only dinner or the restocking of the hurricane pantry, just grab a cloth bag and go, yes? No, not so much.

The oddball totes are okay for a short trip to the store. You can unload your cart quickly, then run to the other end of the counter and start loading the bags. Otherwise, you need to plan it out a bit to get things into the bags in reasonable shape. I’ve got a couple of “long totes” that I almost consider the perfect bags … but they still leave something to be desired. So I stick mostly to the “store bags”.

But of all the bags I’ve tried and set for a variety of uses, the hardest things I find to carry are long breads and wine. And I have no way to really keep those little plastic bags for veggies contained when I reuse them. I tried stuffing little bags in my pockets or purse, but I often forget to bring them along or to take them out of my pockets and use them. I tried carrying the wine or breadsticks separately, or handing them to the eldest … yeah, no.

I finally hit upon what to do. I took some stretchy cloth, measured it to the circumference of a typical wine bottle, gave myself a couple of inches to sew it, and simply sewed a sleeve into a grocery tote bag. The images outlining the steps are at the foot of this entry.

I can slide in a bottle of wine and not have it flop over on the other groceries, or I can slip in a nice loaf of bakery bread and not have other foods roll on it or have it slip out of the bag (you can optionally add a drawstring or elastic). Before I head to the store, I stuff the sleeve (even make it detachable) with the small veggie bags - and when I hit the produce department, I have a ready supply of bags from my previous trips to re-use.

Simple, easy to augment a bag (heck, sew an old long teeshirt sleeve in there or old stretchy pants leg) such as my lovely “long totes” that I favor for quick trips to “pick up a few things for a nice quick dinner” shop.

Like the bag? Like the idea? Make one and share it with us. Just post your link to your picture in comments.

Like the bag? Like the idea? Stay tuned, you could win one of your own before the month is out!

Note: Wine not included.