Collecting for over a year...

I have been collecting fabric and wishes for over a year now and have 33 squishes (squares and wishes) so far. Most of these are from family and friends.

OHGWQ Group

I recently joined a yahoo group for people making 100 Good Wishes Quilts. It is a good place to swap fabric and wishes, share ideas about quilting, and get tips on putting together the scrapbook album for the wishes. Several of the members of this group have created websites to document their quilts. I had such fun looking through their fabric and wishes that I decided to create a website for William's quilt. For now, I will post pictures of the fabric and wishes that we receive. Later on, I will post updates on the progress of the quilt.

Here are some examples of 100 Good Wishes Quilts:

http://members.cox.net/~joannanorman/quilt/photos.html

http://originalquilts.com/100_good_wishes_quilts.htm

You don't have to be an adoptive parent to make a 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It turns out that people are making them for the birth of a child, birthday gift, Christmas gift, to help with the loss of a loved one, etc. If you are interested in joining the OHGWQ yahoo group, go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OHGWQ/join.

100 Good Wishes Quilt

Many families in the adoption community (especially families adopting from China) have begun to make 100 Good Wishes Quilts for their children. Rumor has it that this is a custom from somewhere in nothern China. I have seen the following description of this "Chinese tradition" on many websites, including http://members.cox.net/~joannanorman/quilt/index.html.

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square patch of cloth. The 100 patches are sewn together into a quilt that contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

I haven't been able to find any reference to this tradition outside of the websites of adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents. The website sited above admits that there is little information to be found about the tradition. Being half Taiwanese, I debated a long time on whether or not to make one of these quilts for my son. I didn't want to perpetuate the idea of a false Chinese tradition. However, I like the idea behind the wishes and I love to quilt. So many of our family members and friends have been excited about William's adoption. I thought it would be a nice way for everyone to express that enthusiasm. So, I decided to take this project on as a new tradition in the adoption community rather than as a Chinese tradition.