Personalized Graduation Stole

PLEASE NOTE: This is a made-to-order item. This custom stole is made to order, with a 3-month turnaround from order to shipment.

Made from 100% cotton, each stole honors your story, your roots, and the journey that brought you here. The cloth is crafted by hand-collecting raw cotton, hand-spinning it into yarn, dyeing it black, and weaving it into cloth on a pedal loom. The finished cloth is then handed to a skilled artisan, who hand-embroiders it over the course of several additional weeks, resulting in a one-of-a-kind heirloom that honors both your heritage and your accomplishments.

Personalize your stole with the elements that matter most to you — a school emblem, a beloved pet, family symbols, hobbies, or anything else that helps tell your story. Once your order is placed, our team will personally reach out to gather those details and bring your design to life.

The cotton is hand-dyed and then woven on a pedal loom to create the cloth, before the artisans hand-embroider the stole. It's important to note that the artisans weave their own cloth on the pedal loom — no industrial fabrics are used at any stage.

Each piece moves through a path of weeks, and sometimes months, of work involving many hands and a lot of love. It's a garment meant to be worn with great pride. Every stole includes a tag bearing the name of the artisan whose work you're supporting.

Every year in Uruapan, the Feria Artesanal serves as a cornerstone for Michoacán's artisan community, traditionally providing the main source of income for local artisans. However, in 2020, the global pandemic forced the cancellation of this vital event, leaving artisans without a platform to showcase or sell their crafts. In response to this challenge, Tsanda was born.

Launched as a non-profit initiative, Tsanda emerged with the mission of supporting artisan families by promoting and selling their handcrafted textiles through social networks. What began as a grassroots effort to restore lost income quickly gained momentum. By September of the same year, the overwhelming support for the project led to the official founding of Tsanda as a brand, with the goal of sharing a piece of Michoacán's rich artisan heritage with the world.

Today, Tsanda has evolved into more than just a marketplace for handmade textiles—it has become a driving force of inspiration, preservation, and respect for Purépecha culture. The project has not only provided a stable source of work for artisans but also fostered economic independence for these families. Currently, 12 artisan families across seven different communities collaborate with Tsanda, and the project continues to grow with a vision of incorporating even more families and integrating a diverse range of traditional textile techniques.

By empowering artisans and celebrating the cultural richness of Michoacán, Tsanda aims to take these extraordinary crafts to all corners of the world, allowing each piece to carry the story of its people and the traditions they cherish.