I'm trying to add nodes to a rectangle to make a kind of hour glass or bow ty shape have no idea how to do it. online tutorial said use shape tool to lasso but it does not work. this can't be that hard but I can't figure it out
Things like this, that need to be symmetrica,l are better done with curves. Create the top left curve of the hourglass and clone it, flip the clone. Then flip the clone vertically, duplicating, then again horizontally. So you have the basic shape. Now if you node edit the master all the others will be identical and you will end up symmetrical. Good idea to align your start and finish nodes on your master to a guideline.
When all done use the Smart Fill tool to create a closed fillable object