In English-- 100 Good Wishes Quilt.
It is an old tradition in parts of China (mostly Northern China as I understand this tradition) for friends and family to donate pieces of fabric to the child’s mother to make a quilt. Often the fabric comes from clothes that the people no longer wear, or even from clothing of ancestors that have passed. The quilt is then handed down through the generations.
They believe that the good wishes from all of the families and friends surround the child when she is wrapped in the quilt.
In the US (and other countries) I discovered that this tradition is also practiced (primarily in Southern States here in the US) and among those who regularly sew or make quilts (of which I do NOT fit ANY of those categories)! The quilt squares I collected from family and friends was accompanied by a wish or inspirational quote or poem for Josie and Clara Rose.
Having never sewed more than a button before, I wanted to and succeeded in making each of the quilts by myself while we were waiting to adopt. I also made both girls a "Book of Wishes" that contains a smaller piece of each quilt square with their "wish."
I've held onto the quilts and books for a few years because I wanted the girls to old enough to remember receiving these quilts, but still young enough to be excited to get them.
This year I gave the girls their quilts for Chinese New Year.
I think they were pretty excited!
The girls had a lot of fun looking at the different
squares in their quilts and seeing if the other one also had it or not.
Some of the squares, they both had-- and some squares only one had in their quilt.
People who know me well-- and what a "Susie-homemaker" I am-- NOT,
I sent me extra squares when I made Josie's quilt.
When I was collecting squares for Clara Rose's quilt, Josie I brought a bunch of
her extra squares to her preschool class and her friends and teachers there picked squares and made wishes for Josie's "Baby sister Rose" quilt.
The girls spent much of the evening looking through
their wish books-- asking me and Wim to read the wishes to them,
who they were from and finding the square to match in their quilt.
They would ask about specific family members and ask where their wish and square was-- and we would find them and look and read.
I think this is a wonderful tradition-- for anyone.
It is easy to google 100 good wish quilt to find out ways to
solicit and/or trade quilt squares to make such a quilt.
I bought a good but used sewing matching (no, I didn't hand stitch--get real!) and a couple of beginning quilt books and used those as reference guides. I didn't even attempt any fancy patterns-- I kept the squares in the order they arrived and that is how assembled them into the quilt. I used a a cotton/poly blend stuffing to add some warmth to the quilt and a soft red flannel for the quilt backing-- because red is a celebratory color in China. I used red thread to sew all the squares and the backing-- using a double stitch, stitch the ditch method. If you are not a sewer-- this may sound fancy-- believe me-- it is basic.
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