Thursday, November 11, 2010

WanYing's 100 Good Wishes Quilt

It's time for a new project to fill all of that pesky spare time as we wait to bring WanYing home!

The Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt, is a beautiful tradition from Northern China. A new baby would be greeted with a quilt made from fabric and clothing swatches collected from friends and family, sewn together in a patchwork of love and good wishes to envelope the new little one. This tradition has been enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese adoptive community (I suspect because it's a nice way to pass the months of waiting!!!).

We would love to bless WanYing with a 100 Good Wishes Quilt as we bring her home from China. We plan to create a wall quilt (with the grandmothers' help!) to hang up in her room alongside Sasha's Dream Quilt to remind her of the anticipation, joy, and prayer surrounding her homecoming.

Want to be a part of WanYing's quilt? Hope so, we need a *lot* of help! Here's what you can do:
  1. Select fabric that you like from your craft supplies, old clothing, project pile, or the fabric store - maybe it's meaningful to you, maybe it has some history, or maybe you just think that it's pretty. It should be 100% cotton and woven (not knit, not like a t-shirt). If each member of your family wants to select their own, all the more good wishes for WanYing!
  2. Cut a 12" x 12" piece and another little scrap of the fabric
  3. Write a note for WanYing with your good wishes. You could include a scripture, a quote, song lyrics, a picture of you, and/or your own heartfelt blessings and prayers for her future. Do whatever expresses your good wishes for WanYing. Don't forget to include your name!
  4. Add a scrap of the fabric to your note, so that WanYing can match your quilt square to your good wishes.  We'll put all of the notes in a book for her to read as she grows.
  5. Get your fabric and good wishes to us! You can give them directly to us, send them via mail (95 S 300 E, Orem, UT 84058), or give them to either of our moms if you're in the Westminster, Md. area.
If you're confused at all, here's an example of our good wishes and fabric for Macy Printy, and there are many more lovely examples on her 100 Good Wishes Quilt blog.

Thanks so much for joining us in anticipatory welcome of our new little princess!

2 comments:

Lori @ Five of My Own said...

I'm in...my girls too.

Melanie said...

What a beautiful idea, Jamie! I'd love to send something, too. It would make more sense probably for me to send it to one of the mamas - could you e-mail me an address?

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