100 Good Wishes Quilt

is BEAUTIFULLY complete!!

This quilt actually started over 4 years ago when we learned about the custom from other adoptive families.  Creating a Bai Jai Bei (100 Good Wishes Quilt) is a tradition in the northern part of China to welcome and celebrate a new life.  It is custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square patch of cloth with a wish for the baby.  All of the fabric is then sewn together into a quilt.  It is said that the luck, energy and good wishes from the family and friends who contributed the fabric surrounds & protects the child when they are wrapped in the quilt.  The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

We started collecting squares & wishes in 2007.  All of those early squares came from families we have only met online through our common bond of adoption.   After receiving our referral for Eva in February, 2010 we sent a letter to family and friends, not only announcing our precious new daughter, but requesting their contributions of fabric.  We were so blessed by everyone's enthusiasm with our project and we received well over our goal of 100 pieces; some coming from as far away as France!  

Seeing all of the colors, textures and patterns, that when looked at individually may appear to not go together, now all sewn as one into something so beautiful is breathtaking.  It's much the same way that I view how God sews families like ours together through adoption.  Taking people that may not always look like they belong together on the outside, and knitting our hearts so tightly together that we beat as one.

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to Eva's quilt.  I know she will come to treasure it, and the love behind it, as much as we do!

Eva,

You have been loved by us before you were ever born. 

You bless not only our lives, but the lives of those around you. 

May this quilt, and the wishes that come with it, always surround you

in the warmth of that love!

Mom, Dad, Noah & Nicholas