100 Good Wishes Quilt

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition to make a Bai Jia Bei (100 Good Wishes Quilt). When a baby is born, family and friends donate to the child’s mother fabric scraps from old clothing with a written wish for the new baby. A quilt for the child would be made from the scraps. It is said that the luck, energy and good wishes from all of the families and friends who contributed the fabric surround the child when she is wrapped in the quilt. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

As you know, we are in the process of adopting a baby girl. It is important to us that family and friends participate in this activity and bless our child. We love the idea of welcoming our daughter into our home with a quilt that represents the good wishes for her from our family and friends.

HERE IS WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO: 1. Choose any 100% cotton fabric that you like. It can be from a piece of clothing or from a fabric store. It just needs to have a design and color that you like. 2. Cut one (1) 9" square from the fabric. You do not need to finish the square of fabric. 3. On card stock or store-bought card, put a small piece of the fabric and include your "good wish note." Please include why you chose the fabric and your name and address. The fabric will be used to make a quilt, and the notes will be placed in a keepsake book which we will give to our daughter when she is older.

IDEAS FOR SELECTING FABRIC SQUARES: * Select a fabric that is meaningful to you. Please no cartoon prints. * 100% cotton fabric is best, as it washes and wears better. * If there are several members in your family, please feel free to send more than one good wish note and pieces of fabric. IDEAS FOR GOOD WISHES NOTE: Well, what would you wish for an infant to have in her life? Some ideas are good health, perseverance, compassion, love, and a sense of humor. Use that as a guide for your good wish note. Keep in mind that our daughter will not see your note until she is older.

It would be great to get the fabric and notes in the next couple of months so the quilt can be completed before we bring our baby home. The quilt is being designed and assembled for us by my mom. We are excited to see another fabulous piece of work from her.

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!

If you would like to participate, please e-mail me at talesfromourlittleworld@hotmail.com and I will send you our address. Also, if you would like to see samples of fabric and notes please check this out. (minus the cartoon character fabric) http://www.quiltofsquishes.blogspot.com/

Peace and Love.

This is how the whole thing started....

We are excited to keep all of our friends and family updated on our path to parenthood. Here is a quick synopsis to date.

June 17, 2006: We attended an orientation seminar with Chinese Children Adoption International. After that day we never looked back. We knew we wanted to adopted a little girl. Three days later our application was sent.

July-November 2006: It's official. We are adopting from China and we spend this time completing our "paperchase". We collect information about ourselves, write biographies, order documents, prepare the house for our social worker and create extravagant checklists to track our progress.

October 12, 2006: Final approval from USCIS and within weeks our complete dossier is sent to our agency for final approval and translation.

November 29, 2006: Our dossier is sent to China and we are on our path to make our family whole. We are anxiously awaiting our offical Log In Date (12/31/2006).

December, 2006 and on: Our wait begins... To all that are a part of this fantastc journey we want to thank you for your kind words of encouragement. Your immense support is appreciated.

Easter Weekend, 2007: The wait with China has grown exponentially. We have decided to pursue an interim adoption from Vietnam. We are "staying in line with China" and in the meanwhile adopting our child from Vietnam through World Child International. Perhaps this was the road we were meant to take all along and we are thrilled at the prospect of a new adventure. We have already started the new "paperchase" and have our sights set on the end of May for dossier submission. Our wait continues....but should be shorter!