This is so interesting. I got a book on making costumes some months ago, and have started to learn how to sew recently, as a middle-aged man with no prior experience (aside from maybe sewing a button back on). It's all new to me.

My wife does not like the fiddly, precise parts involved in the process; as a programmer, I expect I can do that well. Other things -- like the machine running too fast, no matter how I push the pedal -- look like they'll mostly be solved with experience (and possibly better gear).

A couple other observations:

- I've been fairly happy learning from resources geared to women and girls, although I must admit I find most of the projects uninteresting.

- It was delightful to find a book on making backpacks and rugged items. I was surprised that it was nice to see a man doing sewing; I didn't think it mattered much to, well, see someone like you doing something.

- I remember seeing a tweet that said something like, "I'll know the library wants to really support making when I can send a kid there to ask to use the digital embroidery machine much as they might ask to use a 3D printer."

Folks here might be interested to know that there's a fairly recent technique of using a projector to show a pattern, at a 1-to-1 size, on a cutting mat so you can cut it out and make it. Way easier than printing a bunch of pages and taping them together.