Hi Julie,I absolutly love the sepia samplers and I also really like the 'coloured'ones too. I have to say that the sepia are more subtle and would be lovely on display even when the babe is alot bigger,whereas I feel that the coloured samplers would unfortunatley find there way into cupboards/drawers

I like them both about the same it just depends on the person I would be making it for. They both have a very soft feel to them.

Thanks Rose and Karen for the helpful comments. It is always so difficult to rise above my own personal preferences! I think Karen made a good point - and seen more as decorations than as “birth records”, perhaps the sepia designs are more likely to still be around in a child’s room after a few years. The first cross stitch I ever did was a baby sampler for a sweet new baby girl and it was very very pink! The common thread with them all probably is the soft feel.

I think I like the sepia designs more than the coloured ones. Sort of a modern feel to them, although they look like an older style if that makes sense. Definitely something I would get before another coloured one.

Hi Tiffany. I think you have raised an interesting point about “old and modern at the same time”. Maybe it’s because the sepia tones fit in very well with modern decor; but the romantic treatment of the subject matter, like the first photographs, echoes decades past?

I stitched a sepia toned birth sampler for one of my grandsons and everyone who has seen it prefer it to the coloured ones I did for the first two boys. I have a lot of very old sepia photographs of my grandparents and have always loved the tones in them.

Hi Athalie. Yes I know exactly what you mean about old sepia photos. They have a lovely quality and atmosphere about them.

I've recently finished my first sepia cross stitch - a mother giraffe nuzzling the neck of her baby ( I did it for DH who is also very tall). It looks stunning so the sepia baby ones would be my choice. Mine was also a Vervaco. The only drawback for the stitcher is the similarity of many of the `colours', very easy to make a mistake which can take some time to see and correct.

Yes Ayna I agree that is one big problem with the subtle shadings: it is just so easy to miss a mistake before it becomes a real pest to correct.

Fun fact about the baby with the teddybears:

While in the design stages, the bears' facial expressions had to be changed when it became apparent that everyone who saw the design felt like the bears were looking a little too threatening, more like zombie bears than cute and fluffy teddybears.

This, of course, lead to a great deal of fun among the designers and the people involved in the production process (i.e. myself included).

How interesting to hear some of the background to the design. It was certainly worth the effort to get it just right.