how-to

I missed last week's theme of how-to, so I thought I'd revisit it today. But how to do what exactly? Well, I'm a quilter so I could tell you how to make a quilt. Here's how: Cut up a bunch of fabric into triangles and sew it back together. That's one answer. But a lot of quilters never do that. They might cut shapes and applique them onto a background. Another will take a single piece of fabric and quilt it, adding texture and design only with their needle and thread. Others fuse fabric, sealing it down with layers of machine quilting. Some burn the fabric's edges or use Tyvek or beads on their quilts. Some experiment with dye, bleach or resist or all three. Quilting comes in many shapes and forms. The only thing they have in common is that a quilt has three layers, a top, some kind of batting and a backing and is held together with stitches. Usually.

How to stamp, then. But the question is stamp what? A card? A piece of fabric? A collage? Stamping, like sewing, is basically easy. Just push your stamp on the ink pad and press on your paper. But some people like to start with their own image and cut their own stamps. Others use store bought, take classes and make patterns from books. How about vegetable stamping? Half a cabbage makes a wonderful image. The variations on a theme are endless.

Okay, I'm a writer. Here's how-to write. Sit down at the computer and start putting words on a page. Or put pen to paper. But that only begins to describe the writing process. Every book I've written has had a different process. Right now, I'm writing by hand on a yellow legal pad with a uniball pen. That's the way Laurie R King started, Andre Dubus III does and our own Betty Hechtman. Works for me.

How-to depends. It depends on what you want to do and how you want to get there. It depends on your needs and comfort levels. The most important part of how to is do.