Sabrina-Rose (Mason) Benedict 鈥�18 has always described herself as 鈥渃rafty.鈥� Shortly after graduation, she was working as an office assistant and looking for a new hobby to do in her spare time. She picked up a few skeins of yarn and taught herself how to make a finger-knitted blanket using a YouTube tutorial. After making a few and sharing her final results online, she found herself being commissioned to make more blankets for friends and family. With their encouragement, she opened 鈥淪ab鈥檚 Blankets鈥� and began selling at local craft shows.听
To pair with the blankets, Sabrina also began making pillows. One night, while sitting on her couch in the middle of pillow-making, she couldn鈥檛 help but think that the half-done pillow resembled an octopus. She reworked her pillow pattern into an octopus stuffie pattern (appropriately named 鈥淥llie鈥�), and once stuffies were on the brain, she created patterns for several plush characters including Beatrice the Bumblebee, Popper the Penguin, and Willie the Whale. These stuffie patterns quickly became her best-seller and business exploded, leading Sabrina to change her business name to 鈥淪ab鈥檚 Stuffies鈥� in 2022.
Sabrina鈥檚 business growth can be largely attributed to her social media presence. On @sabsstuffies, Sabrina promotes her products, shares finger-knitting basics and solutions to common issues, and gives viewers a glimpse of the unique circumstances related to being a crafter and business owner. Through this, Sabrina has built an online community of crafters (over 1.5 million strong) to teach, learn from, and share with.听
Running a business with such a large online presence comes with challenges. Among the thousands of positive comments and shows of support, dissenting voices inevitably make themselves known. Sabrina shared that it is easy to let these comments destroy your confidence in your work, but 鈥渉aving a broader community of people that are constantly speaking life and encouragement to me helps drown out the negative noise when it arises.鈥� This community is something that she values most about her business model and reminds her of the community she shared on the cross country team and with her roommates and friends at Cairn.
With over 15,000 sales and counting, Sab鈥檚 Stuffies shows no signs of slowing down. Making the most of her toddlers鈥� nap times, Sabrina is continuing to add to her line of products, film tutorials, and sell at local craft markets. She currently has over 23 patterns released and has plans to launch at least 10 more in 2025.
