will nature make a man of me yet?

At least for me, the main form this takes is making myself notable as a haver and collector of things people are getting rid of. I've picked up literal thousands of buttons from yard sales, old ladies who were downsizing, and (on one memorable occasion) a high school that was getting rid of 200 very smelly old school band uniforms. If there's a Centre for Creative Reuse near you, that's a good source. Getting to know old ladies is the best source, though. You only need to find the one who is the center of the local Old Lady Social Network and she'll tell you whenever Moira From Down the Street needs to get rid of some zippers.

(there are things you're probably not going to want to use vintage, though. Old thread is often not very functional. Also, with any old textile, be very careful about moths)

The other form this takes is knowing what to buy in bulk. For me, this is zippers and interfacing. You can get a 10-pack of zippers online (if you're in the states, WAWAK is your best source. One of the few things I miss about living there) for about the same price as a single zipper in the store. Similarly, buying interfacing by the yard is a sucker's game. Get a big roll of it online. You're always going to need it. You're similarly always going to need black thread and white thread and light grey thread (if you don't have a thread that matches your fabric, light grey is usually the best way to have that fact not stand out), so get a bunch. I do basically all of my own pattern drafting, so I also need to have a lot of paper. I use either butcher paper or medical exam table paper and buy it by the roll.

As for fabric itself, this will depend a lot on your goals, which we'll discuss later. But one of the best investments (of time, mostly) that you can make is finding a good place to store more fabric than you currently have. I use long (sealing) bins under my couch, mostly. But the point is that you have to plan to store a fair bit if you want this process to be sustainable, because sustainable practice requires you to pick up stuff whenever it's available, to keep your scraps, and to build up a stash. My sewing practice is made so much smoother by the fact that I always know I have some lining fabrics under the couch for whenever I need them, and more pleasant by the fact that I know I got them for a buck a yard from the bolt-end bin.

Equipment

You say you already have a sewing machine, which is good. For any reader who doesn't, I am unfortunately not a good source of advice on how to get one, since both of the machines I have owned in my life (and it's just two over 25 years of doing this) have simply come to me through the Old Lady Social Network. I know the basics (never buy something labeled as a 'travel' or 'portable' machine, or anything branded towards children, no matter how cheap) but no real recommendations beyond that.

But I can tell you the single most important thing I changed that turned me from 'someone who sews sometimes' to 'someone who sews all the time'. And that was getting a big ironing board and keeping it set up all the time.

As any sewist will tell you, 'sewing' is actually not a particularly accurate description of what you do as a sewist. Because most of it is ironing. You will always always always be ironing. So be ready to iron! Keep that thing set up and ready as much as possible, to keep the 'start-up energy' of sewing at a minimum. Similarly, having a surface for cutting that doesn't come into contact with anything that would be deleterious to cutting (eg. food) is an important part of the process too. I didn't have a table most of the time, but I had a set of thick foam floor mats that I could pull out when it was cutting time. You really don't want sewing to be competing for space with cooking or eating. The two do not mix well.

As for cutting tools themselves, I think most people can get by with two dedicated pairs of scissors: one for paper, one for fabric. These must be isolated from all other household scissors. They cannot be used elsewhere - especially the fabric scissors. Bad scissors lead to bad cutting which leads to bad results. Having dedicated tools is an ineliminable part of a sewing practice. Put a big label on them to dissuade other household members if you have to. You always need to know where your scissors are.

You're also going to need dedicated measuring tools. The tool I use most by far is my clear acryllic ruler. It's 18" long and suitable for most small-scale cutting and marking. Again, this should be a dedicated sewing-only tool. If people in your household start using it for other arts-n-crafts, it won't stay as clean as you need it to be.

How you organize your sewing space is up to you. Mine is never quite right. One thing you definitely want is a bin for scraps and offcuts that will accumulate during the sewing process. Don't throw them out unless they really are unusably tiny. And no effort of organizing is truly wasted. It may take a couple of tries to find a system you like, and there's no way to find it without trying.

Methods

This is where things are going to start to get a little more abstract. A lot of people new to sewing as a practice have not had the opportunity to think about their methods as a coherent category before. After all, when you buy a commercial pattern, it tells you what steps to do in what order. If you, dear reader, are a beginner, please keep doing that. You will feel like you don't need to do all the steps, that things like 'understitching' or 'clipping' seem like a pointless waste of time, but I implore you, read the instructions carefully before you start and follow them to the letter.

However. You will not always need to do that.

I don't really use commercial patterns anymore, but on the few occasions on which I do, my whole interaction with the instructions is to give them a quick once-over to see if they are recommending any interesting-looking techniques I haven't tried before, and if they're not, I then put away the instructions and never consult them again. This is because I have my own mental library of preferred methods for doing all the stuff I regularly do. Most of the time, these methods are a little more advanced than something a commercial pattern (which is always pitched at the lowest skill level it can feasibly get away with) would tell you to do. Often, they're for features that aren't commonly used in modern garments and for which I'll need to slightly modify the pattern or construction. I'm a big fan of all-in-one sleeve plackets, for instance.

A beginner absolutely should not ignore the instructions. But once you've got enough experience, you start to figure out how things logically have to work without needing to consult them. If I'm making a bodice with darts, I'm basically always going to want to do the darts first. If I'm making a vest with a bag lining, I know that I have to leave two of the seams open to turn the lining out. I clip my curves and corners without even thinking about it. That's just the result of experience and the cumulative effect of trying and studying a whole bunch of different techniques. There's rarely such a thing as the 'best' way to do something, and you should be suspicious of anyone who tells you there is, but there are better and worse ways, and ways that are better and worse for you personally (often coming down to 'do you like or not like hand-finishing'). Building up that internal library of techniques you like takes a while, but it will eventually free you from the tyrrany of instructions forever.

(though I do also keep an external library around, in the form of this book, Vogue Sewing 1984. It's an incredibly dated, snobby, 80s-tastic tome, but sometimes you need something snobby to tell you a good way to apply seam binding. Just ignore the part where it gives you a two page spreadsheet (!) to determine what styles are 'suitable' for your body)

The thing about knowing your methods is that your methods will condition your supplies and equipment. I really advise people not to buy too many gadgets until they're at the stage where they know exactly how they like to do things without looking at instructions. I get a tonne of use out of my automatic buttonhole foot (which I finally fixed! After a long time!), because I make a fucktonne of buttonholes and that's the way I like to do it. But if you're not a button-lover, that might not be a wise purchase. A beginner basically only needs a machine, scissors, an iron, and somewhere to put the iron.

But methods are always methods of doing something, right? And that's the main issue here. The key to the whole programme. Because unless you have a clear sense of what you're trying to do, you can't start doing any of it.

Goals

I left this for last because it's the most important, but also the hardest to give specific recommendations about. Because your goals are your own. I can give you examples of how I think about my goals, but my goals will never be yours.

But this is really the difference-maker. This is what turns sewing from a 'thing you do occasionally' to a practice. You have to know why you're doing what you're doing. So, I'll give you some examples of my goals, and how they've influenced my practice.

I want 80-90% of my total wardrobe (with the exception of undergarments) to be made by me

I want to wear well-fitting tailored traditional menswear on my non-traditionally-menswear-shaped body.

I want as much of the fabric I use as possible to not be purchased new

I want to continue to improve my skills (especially drafting)

I do not want to make or wear anything stretchy

Anything I wear regularly as a base layer needs to be machine washable, but not machine dryable, since I hang all my clothes to dry

I sew for myself first, and only occasionally for others (and only others who I like and who I think will actually wear what I make them)

I want to be spontaneous with my projects

These goals condition everything else. For instance, I know there's no point in my ever acquiring stretch fabric or tools to manipulate stretch fabric (eg. ball-point needles), because I never want to make anything that stretches. I know that I want to pre-wash most of my fabric but not pre-dry it (always pre-treat your fabric in the manner you intend to treat it once it's assembled. For something that goes in the wash, run it through the wash first. For something that goes in the dryer, run it through the dryer first. Let it shrink and warp before you cut it, not after). Because I'm sewing for myself only, I should never acquire fabric that I wouldn't personally wear, even if it's free. Since I'm sewing a daily wardrobe, rather than costumes or one-off specialty garments, I know I need to consider how each new garment fits into the whole. However, I still want to be spontaneous, and choose each new project one at a time, rather than planning whole wardrobes in advance. I also know that I personally hate having more than one 'active' project at a time, so I don't ever cut something new until I'm finished the previous thing. But I know tonnes of sewists who do absolutely none of the things I just mentioned, because they have different goals.

Now, I've been sewing nearly all my own clothes for about 15 years at this point, so I'm already extremely familiar with what I like and don't like. And I also know why I bother sewing my own stuff in the first place - because the styles I want to wear are simply not available for purchase. Those are two things that everyone who wants to sew needs to figure out. If you've never thought this through before, this video is a pretty good primer. But if you're just starting out, you probably won't be able to be quite as specific as I am just yet. After all, it was through sewing things that can't easily be bough that I learned how much I liked them. The best advice I can give is to start with what you know you like, and what you think you can achieve at your current skill level, and then slowly push the boundaries of both.

One thing that I found quite useful at the start was iterating on patterns that worked well. If I made something and liked it, I would always make another one in a different fabric, with maybe a slight variation to really dial in whatever I liked about it. It's generally good practice to trace your patterns on to tracing paper, rather than cutting them, so that you can make alterations without ruining the pattern. The process of dialing in fit takes time and patience. Eventually, you're going to want to get really good at it and then make your own blocks, but I wouldn't jump into block-making until you have a grip on the basics of fitting. Get a few good garments that you like under your belt first. (and then, when you're ready, watch this video for further instructions. The method she describes is basically my standard practice). It sounds like you've got patterns already, so you may as well learn everything you can from them. (by the way, by starting with patterns you're already doing better than many - a lot of people try to jump in by following youtube tutorials, which I would not recommend. Just make sure the patterns aren't AI, since AI patterns don't typically work). You bought the patterns you bought for a reason, right? Doing mock-ups before you cut into your nice fabric is also good practice, especially when you're learning the ropes. It'll give you a dry-run through the steps, show you (roughly) how the finished garment will look, and let you know if you made any mistakes in your measuring or using the size chart. I know mock-ups are boring, but they really do help at the start. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up to make expensive mistakes.