About

A SHORT HISTORY OF f&b SO FAR…

Hi, I'm Sarah and I’m the owner, designer and maker at fripperies & bibelots. My main background is in silversmithing and jewellery, making wedding rings, tiaras and bridal jewellery in which I had a small business for a while but found hard to run alongside my other job as a full-time teacher. I'm a huge knitting and crochet  fan and general arts and crafts lover.

 After I got my silversmithing and jewellery degree I took a PGCE in Art and Design but ended up teaching happily in the primary education sector for seven years before having my first baby boy in 2004.  I enjoyed being able to spend time at home bringing up baby and began knitting again.

 I had my second baby boy in 2007 and two years later in the summer of 2009 with my eldest in his first year at school and youngest nearly two years old I decided to set up an Etsy shop selling stitch markers after making some samples for friends.  My knitting friends even helped me come up with the shop name fripperies & bibelots which basically means showy, frivolous and small, decorative ornaments or trinkets.  It worked for me, described the kinds of things I'd be making and I liked the shortened version f&b which mirrored my frustrated and bored feelings after being a stay-at-home mum for the last five years.

I opened the shop on Etsy at the end of July 2009. It started slowly, then about nine months later I started a group on Ravelry and paid for some advertising with them, a Twitter account and Facebook group for f&b and I started to get a following and lots of lovely loyal customers.  I ran Mystery Stitch Marker clubs and I started making my popular ringOs in January 2011 and they are, by far, my best seller and I love making them. I then started selling my goodies wholesale to knitting shops.  I have a core line of dangly type stitch markers and other knitting accessories such as my Stitch Safe mini crochet hooks and Simple Solid Rings and I run  a very popular mystery Club ringO every few months.

Fast forward to 2017. I decided to leave Etsy and open my own new web shop.  Etsy made some forced changes to their shop system and I decided it would be a good opportunity to take the leap and venture out on my own, so here I am, enjoy browsing and do keep up to date either via my MailChimp newsletter, Facebook, instagram or Ravelry.