BYO

Here in NJ (although, I'm not in NJ this exact minute), we have a lot of restaurants that are BYO. NJ limits the number of establishments that can have liquor licenses (certain # of licenses per a certain # of people which I could probably google, but I'm sure you care less than I do). The licenses can be very difficult to obtain and very expensive. A lot of smaller restaurants simply forgo a liquor license, but NJ allows you to BYO (we usually bring wine or beer, but people also bring spirits). Bringing beer to the fish and chips place is easy. We have four different coolers (we love to tailgate, and apparently I love parens). I've been embarrassed recently when we bring a bottle of wine. Something about hubby lugging our favorite vinos around in a plastic bag has a low class hint to it. Well, we are low class no more. I sewed up a little solution to our problem.

I got the fabric at fabric.com back in March for $3.49 a yard. I only bought the one yard because that's usually enough for a couple of totes. The tote on the left is a little big. It was supposed to neatly handle two 750 mL bottles for those evenings when we go out with others. But the bottles swim in this thing. I didn't have any on hand to test with, but I might be able to put two 1.5 L bottles in it, party time! At the very least, I can put some sort of ice pack in when we're drinking white. The smaller one snugly fits a 750 mL bottle, for when it's just the two of us. (Well, sometimes we bring wine when B is with us, but he still prefers unfermented juices.)

The totes are pretty basic, just lined rectangles. The handles are more of the lightweight webbing I had (silly me, bags are lined in black with brown handles). I was really lazy with these. Last summer I made a wine bottle gift bag for M-i-L and put a round bottom on it, giving a much nicer shape. I may need to improve my design and do a smaller, two bottle tote. I do have a bit of fabric left.