100 Wishes Quilts

While we are waiting to travel, and to create a special gift for the boys on their baptism day, we are working on a project with which we need your assistance. We are creating a “100 Good Wishes Quilt”. There is a tradition in the northern part of China where they make a Bai Jia Bei, or “100 Good Wishes Quilt” to welcome and celebrate a new life. It is a custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square of material. The 100 pieces of material are then sewn together into a quilt that contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the family and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

HERE IS WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO:

(1) Choose any 100% cotton fabric that you like.

(2) Cut two 5" x 5” squares of fabric. Before you cut the fabric to size, please wash, dry, and iron it.

(3) On two acid free 5" x 5” pieces of paper or card stock include your “good wish note”. The wish design can be as simple or elaborate as you would like - let your creative juices flow. Please also include why you choose the fabric and your name & address. We will then have one for each of the boy's quilts and memory/scrapbooks. You can share the same wish (and material) on both or a seperate wish (material) to each.

(4) Please take a picture of you/family with the quilt pieces and good wish notes.

(5) Place the 2- quilt pieces, 2 - good wish notes and 2-photos in a plastic bag and mail them to us. (Pelase send me a private email message for our address to tnjdowney @ msn.com  - remove the two spaces)

IDEAS FOR SELECTING FABRIC SQUARES:

(1) Select a fabric that is meaningful to you.
(2) 100% cotton fabric is best as it washes and wears well.
(3) If there are several members in your family, each family member is welcome to do this.. In China, these quilts were originally made from the garments of family and friends surrounding the child with luck and good wishes.

IDEAS FOR GOOD WISHES NOTES:

Think about what you would wish for a child to have in their life? Some ideas are good health, perseverance, compassion, a sense of humor. Good wishes may include a poem, bible verse, favorite quote or saying, advice etc.

Please take a few minutes from your busy schedules to help us create this very special keepsake. The miracle of this adoption has been helped and nurtured by so many of you and this will be so incredibly meaningful for us as well as our new arrival. 

We currently have 50 squares for each of the boys' quilts after the adoption celebration our church held for us, so we are half way there.  I would be thrilled to have more than 100 wishes for each of the boys.  I want them to know they were thought of by many, even before they physically joined our family.

Thank you !