No, I learned from my grandmother, my mom and my aunt. My dear grandmother could just look at a ready made dress, go home cut out a pattern from newspaper and make an exact duplicate of the store dress! My mom taught me to make some of my clothes in HS and my aunt helped me make drapes, curtains, pillow slips and even a bedspread to match my bedroom curtains. All my family sewed...I think mostly from necessity as were pretty poor when I was a child. I even remember my grandmother making me dresses out of chicken feed sacks...now that's a long time ago...LOL