Learning to sew has given me a common thread with women I otherwise would never have met | Nell Frizzell

Sewing is an anti-consumerist act, self-sufficient, creative and thrifty. It means I don't contribute to sweated labour, and I don't have to know my dress size

Being able to sew is radical, liberating and canny, which is why I've taught my six-year-old to fix his own socks.

This may sound like the overzealous justification of someone who as a schoolgirl took more interest in making her own trousers than in how to create a spreadsheet, but I truly believe that the skill of sewing opens the door to a lifetime of self-sufficiency, creativity and thrift. Being able to sew my own clothes means I haven't had to go into a high street clothes shop for well over a year; I haven't had to stare at my naked, quaking flesh in a changing room mirror; I haven't contributed to the sweated labour of the global south or the environmental devastation wreaked by the fashion industry.

Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood