craftgrrl | newbie sewing question

ive been looking over this community for the past few days and im very impressed with everyones work... good job everyone :)

anyway, ive always been interested in sewing, but have never learned how to do it. at all. im absolutely clueless about it. ive decided im going to teach myself, and i was just wondering how you guys would recommend going about it...

do you think its necessary to learn to sew by hand first, or should i just look into buying a machine and read from the manual? are there any learn-to-sew books out there that you would recommend?

hope you dont mind me asking... thanks for any help, it is appreciated!