About Us

We've come a long way in a relatively short time since we first opened our doors. Here's our history. I hope you enjoy it.

Struggling Parents to Be

It was the year 2001. Eric had been unexpectedly laid off six months into my first pregnancy. Unable to find work, we had moved into my old flower papered bedroom in the basement of my parent's house in Utah. I found a job at an Internal Medicine clinic and waddled about taking blood pressures and keying patient data while my belly swelled in size.

Due to financial duress, I decided I could cloth diaper my new baby to save money. I didn't know cloth diapers had changed from the flat pre-folded sort my mother pinned on me. I shuddered a bit, at the thought of rinsing baby poop in the toilet, but times were difficult. I could do it.

Modern Cloth Diapers

Much to my surprise, an internet search quickly enlightened me—cloth diapers had changed. Big time. In place of, or rather, along side, old fashioned flat diapers were new cloth diapers that were cut and shaped to fit baby's contoured bottom. They closed with snaps and velcro-like hook and loop closures instead of pins. They boasted cute fabrics on the outside, fabrics that were waterproof and easy to care for. And, I discovered, I could make my own.

Well, that changed everything. I quickly began following tutorials I found online and soon had a pile of homemade cloth diapers in front of me. Fashioned from flannel receiving blankets and old dish towels, they did the job, even if they were somewhat crookedly sewn. Unable to find waterproof diaper fabric or other diaper making specific items at local fabric stores, I branched out a little, carefully budgeting and ordering specialty fabrics online. I was dismayed, however, to find that my meager pocketbook didn't stretch as far as I liked due to shipping costs. There just wasn't any one location I could order everything I needed from, and thus, the freight added up.

My Crazy Idea

One night, curled around my sleeping infant, I hatched an idea. I asked my husband, "What if there was an online store that carried everything you needed to make cloth diapers?" My idea blossomed into a business plan of sorts. I thought I could start a little business to run on the side, completely and totally underestimating the size of the cloth diapering community. I mean, come on, there aren't that many of us, right? And even fewer within the community that actually sew their own diapers.

Ha. After several months of research and planning, maxing out credit cards and borrowing some money from my in laws, we launched our store in the early spring of 2002.

We had been able to move to a small rented town home with a single car garage. The One Stop Diaper Shop, ran out of that garage, was an immediate success.

Two days after we opened, I called my husband at his temporary job. I was surrounded by rolls of fabric and could not keep up with the orders by myself. He quit his job, and has ran this business full time ever since.

Our Own Sewing Patterns

Running a shop that sold diaper fabric seeking to help others sew comfortable and economical cloth diapers for their babies and toddlers, it seemed only natural to offer a cloth diaper sewing pattern of our own design. I got to work drafting, re-drafting, and then drafting again during the summer and fall of 2002.

I quickly became concerned about all the different types and brands of cloth diapers already on the market, I didn't want to step on anyone's toes! I decided to purchase an existing cloth diaper company from another work at home mother living in Utah in 2003. With a fresh starting point, I went to work re-drafting her patterns, making changes, re-structuring sizing, and implementing many of my own ideas.

My grandmother, mother, and I tested the patterns, sold our finished products on eBay, and even launched a website. We were able to get our feet wet, receive customer responses and feedback, and make even more changes to our diaper designs.

The Birth of Very Baby

Finally the patterns were ready for printing, but since the designs had evolved so far from the original patterns I purchased, we decided to re-name the line something more meaningful. Eric is credited for the unique and easy to remember "Very Baby" name. When our children were just babies, we adopted a neighbor's habit of gushing, "I call him Very because he is Very handsome" whenever she scooped her little toddler into her arms. Our own babies became Very this or Very that, but mostly "I love you Very". Calling our sister company Very Baby felt perfect.

Soon after releasing the Very Baby diaper patterns, I developed the Very Baby Licensing Program and our little company grew even more with the help of the lovely ladies that came on and worked hard to provide Very Baby cloth diapers to the community.

My grandmother offers the diapers that grew from our early pattern design attempts at her own store, Tallulah Baby. Another business name that stemmed from a pet name—she used to call me Tallulah when I was young.

Growing Pains

Our little business grew and by 2003, we had outgrown our one car garage "shop". Inventory was everywhere, in the hallways, in the bedrooms, leaning against the staircase. We rented a larger house with a two car garage, the extra space felt like heaven.

But only a year later, we were once again dealing with fabric rolls and boxes of elastics stacked inside the house. We needed space to build a shop that would allot us some growing room.

We contemplated buying the house we were renting along with the vacant lot next door to build a shop on, but we didn't think it would give us quite enough room to grow.

We started looking for property in Northern Utah, and then South East Idaho. The further North we looked, the more affordable more land became.

In 2004, we became home owners in South Eastern Idaho and soon after, began construction on our new shop that didn't also double as a garage.

As of early autumn of 2007, we've been operating out of the new shop. Though it isn't 100% finished. I'll post new photos when we've got the inside completely functional. We still need the bathroom finished, industrial shelving installed, and some heat. Winters are cold here.

All in all, we expect this shop will hold us for a good while, at least I certainly hope it will, I'm tired of moving!

Merging the Sister Sites

Eric and I talked a lot over the years, of eventually moving our entire fabric store to the Very Baby domain. We like the name better, it always feels good to tidy up and consolidate, and boy, do I love a big web design project.

In early fall of 2007, after months and months of work, we finally did it. We hope our loyal DiaperShop.com customers will find the new site nice to look at and easy to navigate.

New sister sites have cropped up along the way. Visit our Very Baby Discussion Forum to ask diaper sewing questions and make friends. You can follow diaper sewing tutorials and check out the latest Very Baby news on our Diaper Fabric Weblog. The One Stop Diaper Shop links will re-direct for now, but maybe we'll hatch another idea, something else to do with that domain in the future. (I told you I liked big web site projects!).

We are a family owned, family operated, small business. We appreciate our customers and the cloth diapering, natural parenting community.

Jessica and Eric