As you may know, I don't like to knit out of a zippered bag.  However, these big bags are nice to use for holding a project.  I can put my skein in a Yarn Owl and take it out of the bag when I'm working on the project.  This year isn't done yet, but I am already planning for 2018 to be The Year of the Sweater.  I wanted a Zippopotamus of my own to carry my sweater project in. 

Sometimes I get a fabric I love so much it takes me a while to use it.  This typewriter fabric, and the dot that I have paired it with, were two such fabrics.  Me and typewriters go back a long way.  I have this strange ability to bypass my conscious brain to a point that can be ridiculous at times.  But for typing, it helps the speed.  There is something hypnotic and soothing about fingers flying across the keyboard as words form on the paper, and now, on the screen.  

In high school, I was the fastest typist in my class.  I even won first place in our district UIL typing contest, and this is a funny story.  In my school, we learned to type on electric typewriters.  When it came time for UIL, and I expressed interest in competing, my teacher told me our district used manual typewriters for the competition.  To participate, Mrs. Smiley (I fondly remember her yellow polyester pantsuit and purple suede shoes!)  recommended that I practice on the manual typewriters.   I had to use all my strength every time I pushed on a key.  It seemed it went down further than my finger could stretch.  I barely made a mark on the page for every stroke, and there was no time to rest between strokes. The result was my fingers bent in clawlike formations that were the opposite of the effortless grace of my fingers flying across the keys of the electric typewriter.   I was terrible...and apparently so was everyone else. At the time, I could type 65 WPM on the electric typewriter.  My score during the UIL test was 13 WPM, and I won first place.  I think all of us hung our heads in shame as we collected the medals.  

As I was making my bag, I decided to use that undeserved medal as a zipper pull for my bag.  Doesn't it look great!

I never wanted a career typing.  However, as it turns out, I did spent a lot of my life typing.  My longest-held job, and the one that put me through college when I started UNT at age 40, was medical transcription.  Getting paid by the character was a good thing for me.  After I gave up typing for a living, I came to possess my grandmother's 1950-era manual typewriter, and love that my typing history reaches back to her generation.  Maybe she was fast like me?  If so, it skipped a generation, as my mother never learned to type, although I tried to teach her on that very typewriter.   It is in pristine condition and now is proudly displayed in the home of one of my daughters.  

At the end of my medical transcription career, I could type close to 140 WPM.  Now, I just wish I could knit as fast as I type!

I do have one more Zippopotamus in this fabric in the shop, along with some other fabric options for this bag.  There are some that are 11-1/2" tall, but the new ones will all be 13" tall.  These taller bags, I think, fill a need in the market.  Also, these bags come with a wrist strap, but I add D-rings on both sides, so you can clip a shoulder or cross-body strap on and carry the bag hands free.  

Check out the Zippopotamus and all my thoughtfully designed and hand-crafted bags in Diana Couture's Etsy shop.