100 Good Wishes Quilt

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in some parts of Northern China for making 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,prayers 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.

We started late last Spring preparing to make MeiMei's Bai Jia Bei quilt.

Stuffing letters requesting fabric and wishes...

Such excitement when the first quilt square comes!

Mid-Summer J started sketching out the design...

Then it is time for the cutting of the fabric--good tunes help make the cuts straighter ;)

Laying out of the fabric by color...

Piles of fabric to be stitched...

pinning and ironing makes the sewing easier...

Getting closer now--just working on the borders...

Ta-da...the finished product from the front side...

...and the backside

Close-up

***While I made the top and bottom, a woman from our old church has a HUGE quilting machine, so I enlisted her help.  She was feeling rather sick that day, so it ended up that I hopped onto that big 'ol thing and did some of the quilting myself (eek!) before I finished it off with the binding.

Now all we need is MeiMei to wrap up in her 100 Good Wishes Quilt!