My mother taught me to sew when I was about ten.
She lost her mother when she was five and was raised by her dad and older brothers on a small farm — depression-era not-quite-poverty. I saw the farmhouse when I was little and found it shockingly plain and small; her three or four dresses had fit on a few nails in the wall.
After high school she went to live with a beloved aunt in St. Louis, who was a veritable Martha Stewart and taught her all the household arts, including sewing. I think she became a whole new person in those years. Later, Mom taught me and my sister how to sew clothes and make quilts from the scraps.
I used to embroider linens as gifts for her, and they were badly worn, so I added a few pieces from flea markets to make my version of the old Sunbonnet Sue. The whole thing was done by hand, including the quilting, which my mother did.