Crafted Conversation: Meghan Navoy of Rosemarine Textiles

Go inside the Detroit-based textile studio grounded in sustainability, ethical production, and a love for natural dyes.

Published by Nest, a nonprofit providing no-cost business development resources to creative entrepreneurs worldwide, Crafted Conversations brings you the inside stories from artisans and makers who are leaning into handcraft as a form of self-expression, a means to social and economic mobility, and a way to celebrate and preserve their culture. Prepare to be inspired, educated and involved in their craft and businesses.

Everything starts with sustainability for Meghan Navoy, who runs Rosemarine Textiles in Detroit, Michigan. Each piece in the homegoods and accessories brand is made by home, taking up to several days each to achieve the desired effect. Find out more about this unique business in our latest Crafted Conversation.

NEST: How did you get started on your maker journey?

MEGHAN: I started sewing when I was in middle school, but I really became obsessed in high school. I learned so much about garment construction and spent so much time in the sewing room working on my projects. I also learned how to knit and crochet in high school and was working on projects constantly. I decided to study Textile Development and Marketing in college where I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York!

When I was there, I learned about the environmental and human impact of textile production and the fashion industry. During this time, the Rhana Plaza factory collapse happened and it deeply impacted me and made me want to be part of the solution and not contribute to fast fashion and human exploitation. I attended a talk by Liz Spencer, a.k.a. the Dogwood Dyer, where she shared about her natural dye practice, and I became obsessed with learning more about it. She became my mentor and I dedicated a lot of time to learning everything I could about dyeing fabrics with plants. Two of my friends and I pitched a project to create a rooftop natural dye garden at FIT, and we were able to have it approved and spearheaded this project! It was our graduating class gift and it’s still in existence today, where our students can use the plants grown there for their projects. I also had my own small hand knitting business called A Wool Story, where I sold hand knit accessories using yarn from unraveled secondhand sweaters. This was originally driven by my desire for natural fibers but lack of money to purchase the yarn I wanted, so I would thrift sweaters and take them apart to reuse the yarn. I also sold skeins of the yarn.

After a few years, I wanted to focus more on natural dyeing instead of knitting. I got really burnt out on knitting and the physical limitations of being one person who makes everything by hand and has to source and create the materials from scratch. In 2018, I started Rosemarine Textiles which was originally geared towards making naturally dyed ribbon and wedding decor but it expanded into home goods and accessories.

“I’d always dreamed about having a handcrafted small business, and it’s been such a wild ride learning so much about how to make it sustainable in every sense of the word throughout this 15 year journey.”

NEST: What is one thing you wish people knew about being a maker/artisan/solopreneur?

MEGHAN: Not only do you have to be a master of your craft, you also have to know a lot about business! In the beginning, I really just wanted to focus on my craft and was extremely resistant to learning anything about business. Now I see how completely unavoidable that is!

“I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to grow and expand as an indicator of success, but I do feel that there’s ways to set up your business where you can keep it small and in alignment with the values you have for your life and your business.”

MEGHAN: I’ve actually really enjoyed learning about business and realizing how essential that is to making and selling my work in a sustainable way. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to grow and expand as an indicator of success, but I do feel that there’s ways to set up your business where you can keep it small and in alignment with the values you have for your life and your business. The cultural girlbossification we experienced in the small business world over the last 10 years or so really had me thinking that the only way to success was if I had a big team and a storefront and was doing 1 million different things! In reality, scaling back and pivoting has made me realize that my business can be whatever I want it to be! Having the ability to still do the craft myself and keep things small has been so much more enjoyable than when I was balancing so many different plates.

NEST: Where do you see your business in one year? Five years?

MEGHAN: My business has changed so much in the last couple of years! I scaled back my team to being a solopreneur again, and refocused my offerings to reflect the areas that I’m actually passionate about – which is building community and teaching classes! I am now creating offerings for people to learn to work with natural dyes and fiber arts, which looks like leading classes, making kits and creating zines about sewing and dyeing.

I hope that in a year or so, I’ll have a selection of online video class offerings so that I can connect with people outside of my immediate area. I’d also love to expand my class offerings to include more businesses and professional groups who want to have a fun activity for their team. I started getting into that this year and I really enjoy teaching private classes and I hope to be leaning more into that area of my work over the next few years.

“It’s been really fun to allow myself creative play, and to learn new things and then bring back my learnings to my community so I can share it with them!”

MEGHAN: I really want to expand my products into more kits around sewing and dyeing with plants and just learning new techniques, and then finding ways that I can distill those techniques and share them with others. So much of my time before was dedicated to producing consistent results that I wasn’t really able to experiment in learning new techniques with natural dyeing and fiber arts, so it’s been really fun to allow myself creative play, and to learn new things and then bring back my learnings to my community so I can share it with them! I’ve made several blog posts and video tutorials, and I’m working on creating a series of more consistent content around that because I think that sharing this craft and empowering other people to be creative and observe the natural world around them for sources of color is such a beautiful way to engage with the world and experience nature!