When Cheryl Yakem's daughter was born in 2000, she was a first time mom who decided her daughter was going to have the BEST of everything. She took a quick look around the consumer isles and when it came to diapering, it seemed that the "best" option were expensive disposable diapers. Within 3 days of having her home, the "Diaper Geenie" was full and Cheryl thought to herself , "That's an insane amount of garbage! But I guess that`s what folks do these days, so I guess that`s the way it's going to be." She sucked up her garbage morals and spent the next year and a half trying to be proficient at changing those darn little refills. When her daughter was 2, she noticed little beads all over her bottom. Totally bewildered and a little concerned, she did a little bit of investigating and discovered what nasty little gems were hiding in those little absorbent balls inside her disposable diapers. She immediately decided that her diapering days were over!
Pregnant with her first son in 2003, she was fully prepared to do pins and rubber pants. She told my husband who gave her a sideways look, but agreed. After all, who argues with their pregnant wife, right? She did a quick look on the commercial market and found a few cloth diapers to try out. She also bought a couple of diaper patterns thinking "how hard can it be to sew a diaper?"
Disappointed with the commercial cloth diapers, she turned her efforts to sewing. My favorite of the sewed diapers was the HoneyBoy!®, and despite spending nearly 5 hours on my first one, thought "I can do this!" Fortunately, my sewing speed picked up and after a few months of practice, she decided to purchase one of the Cottage Industry Licenses from BabyByYou! and I started sewing HoneyBoy!® diapers for sale. She owned a little side embroidery business, so it seemed a very natural progression to add some embroidery to those cute little nappies. Stitchnstuff.ca was born!
A few months in, she found that there were some elements of the diapers she was using that could be improved to better suit their family's needs. Armed with some real life sewing experience and a strong background in grade 7 home-economics, she set off one weekend to design a better diaper. She thought the project would take one day, possibly 2. Come on, it's a diaper - how hard can it be? Over 2 years later, 70+ prototypes, countless trials of pattern changes and fabrics, it was done!
Fortunately by this time, Cheryl had given birth to their second son, so there was no interruption in product testing. She finally had a diaper she was proud of and thought it was time to see what other people thought. So, with a big gulp of courage and eager excitement, she put her pride on the line and sent out some to some cloth diapering friends and colleagues to get their honest opinions. After a few more fine tweaks of the design, she crossed my fingers and put some up for sale to see what would happen. To her extreme delight, they sold! Even better, folks that bought, came back and asked for more!
Cheryl continued to sew the diapers herself, but soon found the demand exceeded her capabilities, so she set out to find a sewing contractor. This was a much more difficult task than I had ever imagined, but finally found a fantastic company. The first run of diapers, Micro Doodlez®, went into production in late November 2006. Since that time they have added a full line of cloth diapers and diapering accessories and our products are in stores around the globe. All products are proudly made in Canada!
But what about the name? Why Monkey Doodlez®? When it came to choosing a name, the answer was obvious. Cheryl's daughter, the original catalyst for choosing cloth was her little monkey doodle. She, at the ripe age of 5 when Cheryl formally trade marked the name, was duely thrilled to see her initials after her nick name, "TM".
Get or Gift a set of Monkey Doodlez® today!
eco•POLITAN™ Personal Experience: Perhaps these are considered a designer diaper, but we love our Monkey Doodlez®. The medium long size is perfect for our tall, skinny guy, and the cross over tabs ensure these diapers fit well on any baby. These are some of the best made diapers on the market, and come in some super cute colors and prints.
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