In the words of Cheryl, Monkey Doodlez Founder :

So where on earth did Monkey Doodlez® come from?

It`s a question I get often, so I thought it`s time to share the story!

When my daughter was born in 2000, I was a first time mom and she was going to have the BEST of everything. I took a quick look around the consumer isles and when it came to diapering, it seemed that the "best" was expensive disposable diapers, so that`s what I bought.

Within 3 days of having her home, her "Diaper Geenie" was full and I thought to myself - 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.

So, I sucked up my garbage morals and spent the next year and a half trying to be proficient at changing those darn little refills; I finally gave up.

When my daughter was 2, I one day noticed little beads all over her bottom from her diaper. I was totally bewildered and a little concerned, so I did a little bit of investigating. At the end of my research when I found out what nasty little gems were hiding in those little absorbent balls, I immediately decided that her diapering days were over and that I would not be using disposables again!

By this time, it was 2003 and I was pregnant with my first son. I was fully prepared to do pins and rubber pants; my concept of what cloth diapering was. When I told my husband, he gave me a sideways look, but agreed. After all, who argues with their pregnant wife, right?

I did a quick look on the commercial market and found a few cloth diapers, so I bought some to try out. I also bought a couple of diaper patterns thinking "how hard can it be to sew a diaper?"

I was disappointed with the commercial diapers I had purchased, so I turned my efforts to sewing.

My favourite of the sewed diapers was the HoneyBoy!®, and despite spending nearly 5 hours on my first one, I thought "I can do this!". Fortunately, my sewing speed picked up. After a few months of practice, I decided to purchase one of the Cottage Industry Licenses from BabyByYou! and I started sewing HoneyBoy!® diapers for sale. I had a little side embroidery business already established at the time, so it seemed a very natural progression to add some embroidery to those cute little nappies, and sititchnstuff.ca was born!

A few months in, I found that there were some elements of the diapers that I was using that could be improved to better suit our needs. So, armed with some real life sewing experience and my strong background in grade 7 home-ec, I set off one weekend to design a better diaper. I 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, we'd had our second son so there was no interruption in product testing.

Now that I finally had a diaper I was proud of, I thought it was time to see what other people thought. So, with a big gulp of courage and eager excitement, I put my 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, I crossed my fingers and put some up for sale to see what would happen. To my extreme delight, they sold! Even better, folks that bought, came back and asked for more! I was delighted!

I continued to sew the diapers myself, but soon found that the volumes exceeded my capabilities, so I 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 and the first run of diapers, our Micro Doodlez®, went into produdction in late November 2006.

Since that time we have added a full line of cloth diapers and diapering accessories and our products are in stores around the globe.

But what about the name? Why Monkey Doodlez®? When it came to choosing a name, the answer for me was obvious. My daughter, the original catalyst for choosing cloth was my little monkey doodle. She, at the ripe age of 5 when I formally trade marked the name, was duely thrilled to see her initials after her nick name, "TM".

- Cheryl Yakem -

All of our products are proudly made in Canada!