Meet Our Team
Founder & CEO
Meli Alness
Meli’s favorite responsibilities include casting vision, mentoring, garment design & construction, knitwear design, upcycling, product photography & editing, collaborating with artisans, and meeting customers.
“Every day with Freedom Fibers is a gift and a privilege.”
Lead sewist & sewing instructor
Radha
As a child, Radha dreamed of learning to sew clothing, but it was many years before she had that opportunity. Now, less than 5 years after her first stitches on a treadle machine, she is the head sewist & sewing instructor of our growing team. Radha is smart, artistic, resilient, and courageous.
“I am living my dream.”
Sewist
Rani
We met Rani on our first trip to Delhi in 2025 and immediately felt welcomed by her warm smile and easy laugh. She sews our cotton canvas tote bags, Rani Totes, from our kantha collection, and creates our quilt squares and ribbon yarn from fabric remnants.
“Please order more bags!”
Sewist
Asha
Asha is Radha’s first sewing student and we’re so pleased with her progress and desire to improve. She began by stitching our Meli Shrugs and Tasha Tanks but through her persistence and Radha’s teaching, she has now graduated to more challenging designs. Asha enjoys gardening and she adores lotus flowers.
“I want to keep improving and learning new techniques!”
Sewist
Meena
The newest member of our team, Meena is a natural sewist! She has quickly mastered the most complex designs and is able to assist Radha with teaching others. When asked about hobbies, Meena says that she loves to read and learn new things, and during our talent show Fall 2025, she sang a lovely traditional song for us all!
Sewist
Shailja
Shailja joined our team at the start of 2026 and she has quickly learned all the patterns and is proficient at our most complex designs. She is also a gifted painter, crocheter, and knitter. We are dreaming of starting a knitwear line with Shailja as lead knitter!
Sewist
PRITI
Priti is currently our youngest sewist. She works carefully and diligently. One of her favorite things about sewing for Freedom Fibers is how Radha teaches her with patience and skill.
Block printing artisan
Sudha
Sudha is a block printing artisan and instructor. In fact, she taught Meli the traditional techniques of Indian block printing. She currently works for Freedom Fibers just a wee bit, stamping our clothing labels and brand ephemera, along with stamping the lining for our bucket bags made in collaboration with Khushbu Brand.
Block carving artisan
Pappu
Pappu is a free lance block carving artisan, and Freedom Fibers is his best customer! It takes him up to two days to hand-carve each of the larger stamps; his precision is remarkable! When you see our low prices, don’t worry, we do pay him a living wage (FF doesn’t make a profit from his stamps)!
“I learned block printing from my father. I would love to work full time as a block printing artisan.”
Quality Control Specialist
Annika
Annika is our Quality Control Specialist, but her role at our workshop often extends much beyond just quality control. She is also Meli’s translator, logistics coordinator, mentor, and friend to the entire Delhi staff.
virtual assistant & tech consultant
Violet
Violet is a free lance canva expert, video editor, and technology consultant. If we don’t know how to do something, we call Violet because she’s the quickest at finding accurate answers & always so kind about our CEO’s lack of tech skills! She’s also hard-working, highly creative and an accomplished violinist.