Meet Our Team
Meli Alness, Founder & CEO
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.”
Radha, lead sewist & sewing instructor
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.”
Rani, sewist
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!”
Sudha, block printing artisan
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.
Pappu, block carving artisan
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)!
“Thank you!”
Asha, sewist
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!”
Nahida, sewist
Nahida is the youngest member of our garment construction team, but she is obviously gifted as an artist and enjoys giving henna tattoos upon request! Here she’s modeling a dress/skirt prototype and isn’t she a gorgeous?! We’re looking forward to all she will bring to the team in the coming weeks and months.
Meena, sewist
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!
Violet Pitcher, virtual assistant & tech consultant
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.