How to put the yoga mat inside the bag

Now, this seems a bit simple and silly, but I had a lot of trouble getting the yoga mat into my gingham yoga bag. For my recycled shirt bag, I could open the buttons to get the mat in. But these gingham bags I'm making don't have buttons and it was quite a struggle to get the mat in. This is mainly because the rubbery material that the mat is made of (which has a stickiness that's great for holding yoga poses), is not so great for sliding the mat into the bag. I don't think the material that the bag is made of makes much difference, since the mat is designed to have grip to whatever it's touching.

Anyways, I figured out a simple solution to this conundrum. I just put one end of the mat into a plastic bag (here I used a bread bag) and then I can easily put it in the yoga bag. Problem solved!