Making Stuff

I knit. I sew. I paint, I needlepoint, and I take photographs. I even built a bookshelf once. I'm not listing this to boast or brag, but I do think it's very clever indeed to have the ability to make stuff.

I feel that the addition of each craft gets easier to figure out, based on knowing that each is simply made up of a few basic parts (with endless manipulations and variations). For example, I began my craft career sewing. All garments are made from some modification of 5 basic pattern pieces -- skirt front and back, bodice front and back, sleeve. Having made enough garments by the time I picked up a pair of knitting needles, I understood shaping, drape, and construction. Knitting itself is made up of 2 stitches -- knit and purl. Photography is just the effect of manipulating light -- aperture, shutter speed, film speed, color temperature. And so on and so forth.

So it's with this building-block, I-can-figure-it-out mentality that I'm going to learn to play the guitar. This is how I see it: per the Craft Yarn Council of America, there are 38 million knitters and crocheters in this country (equivalent to the entire population of Poland). According to a questionable internet source, 65% of Americans know how to play the guitar -- or about 195 million people. If that many people (not accounting for the billions more scattered around the globe) have been able to figure it out, I'm sure I can too. After all, I make stuff. :)