Wednesday, December 17, 2008

100 Good Wishes Quilt

For those of you not familiar with the 100 Good Wishes Quilt, here a description I found online:

In the northern part of China families traditionally make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt to welcome and celebrate a new life. It is customary to invite friends and family to contribute a patch of cloth and a wish for the baby. Part of the patch of cloth is sewn into the quilt for the baby, and the other part of the cloth goes into a scrapbook with the wish for the child. The quilt contains the blessings from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric.


I collected patches of fabric and put together these quilts before Elise came home (6 years ago). I had every intention of finishing the quilts, but, life happened and they ended up on a shelf in a closet, packed away with the book of the good wishes that I received with the fabric.
My mom recently mentioned that she has a friend who quilts for a living. I had really, really wanted to hand quilt these but realized Elise would probably have grandchildren of her own before that happened. I decided a part of my Christmas present would be to have these finished up.

Here's the twin quilt. After I brought it home, Elise dragged it up to her room and put it on her bed. I think she really likes this one.

And this is a baby-sized quilt that I imagined Elise playing on....had I finished it before she turned 6! :)

I had collected handprints from family members and had been in the process of quilting those handprints on the baby quilt. Unfortunately, a close family member at the time did something really smarmy, disgusting and horrible and I lost all momentum on quilting the hands (his was originally collected but I've made sure it was not quilted on.) The quilting became a constant reminder of this horrible time and I never got moving on it again. The person that did the quilting was able to fill in handprints to complete the design.

I'm thrilled that they are finally done. Elise loves the story of how they were put together and that she has two special quilts that are hers to pass down to her kids.

So, better late than never, my quilts are finally done!

5 comments:

Super Mommy said...

Beautiful!! I would love one!! We only use quilts in our house - don't like comforters at all! I didn't collect any squares to complete a quilt for either of my girls.

So glad you had it finished! Elise will love it!

Tammie said...

The quilts are just beautiful! I can see why Elise loves them.

Back when we were waiting, I didn't do the squares but now I wish I had.

Karen said...

Beautiful- they are all beautiful-but that handprint one- oh my, how remarkable!...

Vivian M said...

I love the handprint idea! Like Tammie, we never made quilts either, and I regret that. I think your quilts are absolutely beautiful and something your daughters will treasure even more when they are old enough to understand the sentiment behind them. You did great!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I love it!! I especially like the hand print idea. I have a quilt for Jazzie, although it is not half as nice as yours! And poor Tahlia never got one at all :-(