CoCaLo is a relative newcomer to the crib bedding industry, founded in 1998. CoCaLo manufacturers crib bedding under the OshKosh Baby, Baby Martex, and Kimberly Grant labels. Under the Baby Martex label, the Sweet Vanilla collection is one of the unique bedding sets available. Most gender-neutral crib sets use green or blue, colors that most people can agree are relatively neutral. Sweet Vanilla uses the definition of neutral with cream, white and khaki colored bedding. Generally retailing for between $180 and $210, the four-piece crib set seems reasonably priced. Compared to competing crib bedding collections, Sweet Vanilla has a smaller number of coordinating accessories, but the neutral color scheme should make accessorizing relatively easy.

Sweet Vanilla comes as a four-piece crib set with a quilt, bumper, crib skirt, and fitted sheet. The collection is made from a 65/35 poly/cotton blend, with the exception of the fitted sheet, which is 100% cotton. None of the crib set pieces are available for purchase separately. As with most crib bedding collections, a number of accessories are available that match the Sweet Vanilla crib set. Notably missing, however, is a hamper, which most crib bedding manufacturers have available.

Sweet Vanilla's main focus is texture. The quilt has five fabrics- corduroy, velvet, sherpa, waffle, and a fleece backing- all of which are on the quilt to make it touchable. You can't help feeling the "wool" of the lamb or the velvet in the stars. I was happy to see that the quilt uses a genuine patchwork technique, instead of the more commonly used "printed" patchwork, in which the patchwork design is one piece of fabric with the patches sewn into it in order to create the effect. The genuine patchwork technique has each differently colored fabric and texture sewn into it's own "patch".

Some of the fabrics used on the quilt are printed fabrics, where the pattern is printed onto the fabric. Printed fabrics are a more cost-effective way to produce the variety of patterns commonly used in crib bedding, such as ginghams, plaids, and stripes. Woven fabrics are generally a higher quality than printed fabrics. Woven fabrics begin with individual colored threads woven together to create the pattern. I was slightly disappointed to see that Sweet Vanilla did not have the higher quality woven fabrics; I think that the variety of fabrics used and the genuine patchwork quilt more than make up for it.

The bumper is 9" tall with ties on both the top and bottom. Rick-rack trim is used on the long sides of the bumper, while appliqud moons, stars, and lambs appear on the head and foot of the bumper. A slight drawback of the bumper is the fact that it comes as one continuous piece, as opposed to being broken up into two, three, or even four pieces. The crib skirt has a 12" drop to complete the look of the set. The fitted sheet has a striped pattern, which could possibly fade due to normal wear and tear. I would recommend buying several solid colored fitted sheets {white, off-white, or cream}, which are readily available at most bedding retailers, to save the matching sheet for showing off. Fortunately, all of the crib bedding pieces are machine washable.

Unfortunately for Canadian consumers purchasing from a United States online retailer, the Sweet Vanilla bedding collection is manufactured in China. Customers in Canada would be required to pay import duties of as much as 18% of the stated prices.

If you're interested in the color scheme of Sweet Vanilla, you might also want to look at: Dream with Me by Glenna Jean and Verona by Lambs & Ivy.