Learned on Mama's treadle hemming dish towels! My sisters did too but it "took" more with me. When we got a Singer Slant-o-matic 500, we thought we'd died and gone to heaven! Put those decorative stitches on every pillow case we could find! Both machines were work horses.
I grew up sewing in a team. All of us had specialties and it was true assembly line. It took forever to learn to sew alone!