The quilt in question

If anyone is wondering what has happened to the creation of the 100 Good Wishes Quilt, I apologise for keeping you waiting. With the current rate of allocations, it will be 12 years before we meet the Panda. At that rate, it will never happen as we will be too old. So I am feeling a little disillusioned. I guess I need to see some good news before I get excited about the quilt.

Timing...

I was talking to a friend about our project, and mentioned that we were discussing the schedule for the project.

I mentioned that I thought setting a date too far out would be risky because people would be likely to forget… but setting a date that came up too soon would annoy people because they would feel like they didn’t have enough time.

The response? "If [Sandie] doesn’t expect that she’ll even have the baby with her for a few more years, why would you guys even need to start thinking about this yet?"

(I think the real answer to this is "Because we’re excited!!!!!" right?)

So how much time would you want/need to shop for the fabric for your wish square?

Clear as mud?

I wrote up a draft of what we'll need from participants. (Sandie's explanation of the project will be grafted onto the top of this.) Could you guys read this and tell me if there's anything that is unclear to you? Would you understand what you needed to do if you read this letter? Would you have any additional questions? I don't want people to be scared off of participating because the instructions are confusing.

Sandie, there are two places where I have questions for you. Please let me know your thoughts.

If you would like to participate, here’s what to do:

1) Go to a fabric store locally or online, or plumb the depths of your scrap bag, and select a 100% cotton fabric that you love. If you are buying new, a quarter metre/yard should be more than sufficient. [Have we reached any decisions about colors? Is doing a "gendered" color like pink too risky? What happens if you do get a boy?]

2) From your chosen fabric, cut two pieces:

a) a large square measuring 9" x 9" (23 x 23 cm). This piece will be used in the quilt. (We will wash and square up all the pieces when they arrive, so your cutting does not need to be perfect.)

b) a second small swatch about half the length of your thumb. This piece will be included in a wish scrapbook for our little one.

3) Take this swatch and glue it to an index card or small piece of paper. Next to the swatch write your wish. Use all your own words, or incorporate a quotation, verse, or anything that is meaningful to you. The sky’s the limit!

4) Mail the square and the wish card to the location nearest you:

* In Australia: (Sandie's address here)
* Outside Australia: (My address here)

When we receive your envelope, we will note its arrival on our quilt page, http://lobster-quadrille.blogspot.com, so be sure to check in and follow our progress online!

Deadlines are, alas, a necessary evil, without which the world would cease to function. We would therefore like to ask you to mail your envelope by [What date would we like to give them?].

Day 1, and drafting a letter

Look at how many posts we average per month. Now try not to laugh when I tell you that I will be attempting to make a post a day during the month of November in honor of NaBloPoMo Really there is nothing to lose. Even if I don't make it all the way through, it will be a good, much-needed kick in the seat in the pants for my posting frequency. So, why not?

I wanted to begin by updating you on where we are on the Good Wishes quilt front, as there has been a bit of news that we haven't posted. To wit: since Sandie and her family have been approved, she has said that she now feels ready to start planning the quilt!

The first thing we need to do is to draft a note that we can send out to potential participants. This note should explain:

1) what the project is

There are countless examples online from other families who have created Good Wishes quilts. I think we can simply look at a few of them and adapt this amalgam as necessary to our own version of the project. Would you take the action item, Sandie, to do this and send me a draft?


2) what we need from participants.

For this second item, we need to start by figuring out what we do actually need. I can take it as an action item, and then can fold the information into the draft you send me.

Does this sound doable? Feel free to make countersuggestions if you have other ideas!

P.S. In order to figure out what size squares to request from participants, I do need a general sense of how large you would like the finished quilt to be. Are you thinking you would like a quilt she can cuddle up with, or a quilt that can cover her twin sized bed? Let me know!

100 good pinks

Just to help you visualize...



That's 8 x 12, or 96 squares in the body of the quilt, plus 4 squares in the corners to make 100. We could also do 10 x 10 with no corner blocks. (If you intend this to be used on a small bed, the rectangular shape is more practical; if it is more of a lap/snuggle quilt, anything goes!)

More on colour options

The idea of 100 different pinks is actually quite appealing to me, the more I think about it.

I'm interested to know from the people who read this blog whether you would find that limiting. If someone said "send me a square of fabric in some shade of pink" is that significantly harder than just "send me a square of fabric."

Or do you think it's better to just let the quilt evolve organically and just be what it is?

Colour options

For the Panda's quilt, do you think we should work to a colour scheme? The reason I ask is that I had always assumed we would just get whatever people wanted to send, but after watching you put those quilt kits together I realise that I prefer the quilts with certain colour schemes - the pink & green, and the Neopolitan come particularly to mind.

But does that just make it too hard?

Spare a square for Emma?

Whee, Emma in Australia got my square for her baby's Good Wishes quilt! If you have a little spare fabric that would look sweet in a baby's quilt, you might consider sending a square and a wish her way too. She and her mother were hoping to start the quilt next month, but it looks like they have an awfully long way to go before they have enough fabric :(

Take a peek at her page to get the details.

Invitee list and ...30 good wishes?

Hey Sandie, how large is your list of people whom you plan to invite to participate in this quilt? Brainstorming names and assembling addresses (into a spreadsheet, if you are a spreadsheet fanatic) might be a way we could make progress while we wait...

In other news, we'll be doing what amounts to a trial version of a 100 Good Wishes quilt, with a much smaller number of donated squares in it (along with others that will attempt to make some sort of order out of chaos). It'll be interesting to see how it works out!

What we are waiting for...

In case you are wondering how Fionn is going to fit in sewing the Panda's quilt with all her other projects, I should explain that we have decided to not start officially on the 100 Good Wishes Quilt until we are approved to adopt. For that to happen we have to go through 3 months of social worker interviews & assessment which should start in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about what fabric I can contribute. (I'm allowed to contribute, aren't I Fionn?) I have a brocade vest that was part of my going away outfit for our wedding. It matched the vests that Scott & his groomsmen wore. I am going to chop that up for the quilt. I also want to find something special for Gemma & Ben to contribute. Maybe it will be a piece of fabric from a favourite piece of clothing (that they have grown out of, of course.)

I also have a large piece of pink fabric that I inherited from my Grandma. It has since become the official "Girls' Night In" tablecloth. "Girls' Night In" is a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Foundation. The idea is that you get your girlfriends together and stay home and put the money you would have spent towards finding cures & treatments for breast cancer. My friends & I do it a little differently. We get a big apartment or a couple of hotel rooms and all bring along some pink champagne and something to share for dinner, then throw the cost of dinner into the pot to donate. We are developing other silly, funny traditions to go with it (such as the magic fortune telling fish) and my grandmother's pink fabric has become one of them. Grandma suffered from breast cancer in both breasts but recovered both times. So, a piece of Grandma's tablecloth will be going into the Panda's quilt to remember Great-Grandma Claire.

Qianjiaxiu: 1,000 families embroidery

Last month I wrote about the East Asian tradition of making robes for children out of 100 pieces of fabric, as referenced in a museum exhibit of antique children's clothing. Like the Good Wishes quilt custom, the Hundred Families Coat tradition incorporates the idea of sewing 100 pieces of fabric together into a lucky item for a child.

I wanted to introduce you to another tradition that overlaps with the ones we have been examining. (What's so exciting to me here is that this time, there is not only a quilt involved in the custom, but also a [general] locale where this custom was practiced, should we feel inclined to search for more information.)

Back in the spring of 2002, an article appeared in "New Internationalist" magazine about a project intended to bring attention to the importance of China’s dying folk art. A teacher and five students traveled along the Yellow River collecting pieces of cloth from farming families in the area. They assembled these pieces, 1,000 altogether, into a 350 meter long patchwork quilt which they termed "Qianjiaxiu," or 1,000 families embroidery. (NB: 350 meters of quilt would be around 230 lap quilts in a row!)

Why did these artists use patchwork to underscore the importance of folk art in the region?

The idea... came from an ancient ritual in the Yellow River Valley, in which local families praying for good harvest and fortune made a quilt out of 100 embroidered pieces to please the deities. The tradition has been dying out as more and more people have left their villages for towns and cities. (Findarticles.com, "Folk fabric: Chinese villages where unsung artists dwell"; originally printed in "New Internationalist," April 2002)

If this Yellow River custom of creating lucky quilts from 100 pieces of fabric is truly "ancient," I wonder if it could possibly be the basis for the Hundred Families Coats (ca. mid-19th-mid-20th centuries), and ultimately, the basis for our 21st century 100 Good Wishes quilts today?(!)

Other people's wishes

Here is a page of all the wishes that were sent in for one family's Good Wishes quilt project. While it's not the same as paging through the scrapbook itself, skimming through these wishes does give a bit of a taste of what that experience must actually be like.

(They sent some nice ones, didn't they?)

The finished quilt is pretty too. I only wish the site owners had linked each wish to its square, as I am curious to know how the contributors chose to express some of those rather abstract wishes in graphic form!

(But my friends and I were always in search of an unbreakable, secret code for passing messages when we were small - so perhaps knowing that only you, with the help of your superfantastic scrapbook decoder, will ever be able to uncover all your quilt's secrets is part of the fun!)

Book review: A Quilt of Wishes

While scanning the web for information relating to the 100 Good Wishes custom, I came across a reference to a children's picture book on just this subject. After waffling over the hardback version in my local bookstore, I decided to purchase it in paperback from Amazon.

The book is called "A Quilt of Wishes," and it was written by Teresa Orem Werner and illustrated by Nathan Tremlin. From the acknowledgements page, it is clear that the story was based on the Werner family's experiences preparing for the arrival of their internationally-adopted daughter, Natalie Xiao Li.

The story tells of Xiao Li, an orphan in China, and her adoptive parents. While the parents wait for the adoption process to complete, they worry about their little girl, wondering whether she is safe and warm there on the other side of the world.

Remembering how her childhood quilt brought her warmth and comfort, the mother begins a quilt for her baby daughter. Friends and family members learn about this blanket, and send scraps of brightly colored cloth together with beautiful wishes for the little girl. When the quilt is complete, the mother sends it to China.

Xiao Li's nanny opens the box and admires the beautiful quilt, remembering the 100 Good Wishes quilt she was given when she was a child. But this quilt only has 50 squares. She takes it home with her that night, and, in a lovely scene, "within an hour, fifty women who had come to love Xiao Li... showed up with squares of fabric to be added to the quilt." Together they use red thread to stitch the old and new squares together, creating a quilt that will wrap Xiao Li in love and good wishes that stretch from the land of her birth to the land where her future lies.

(As a quilter, I wondered briefly how they added new squares without completely deconstructing the old quilt, but I found myself too caught up in the story to give more than a passing thought to such technicalities.)

When the parents come to get the little girl, the new and improved quilt stands as visible testimony to just how deeply she was loved and cared for even before they held her in their arms. The mother wonderingly realizes that the soft blanket which had been meant to comfort her daughter has comforted her own fears as well.

If there were anything I would change about this sweet book, it's probably something that's partially my own fault. When I saw the hardback version at my bookstore, the illustrations were intensely colored but lovely; when I opened the box to look at the paperback I purchased online, I saw pictures that seemed heavy on magenta. While this gives the Good Wishes quilt a luscious ruby border, and makes the famous red couch at the White Swan Hotel practically glow, it also means that the mother and baby appear sunburned throughout the story. (I probably should have paid more attention to the relative colors of the book covers when I viewed them online.)

While the hardback is a little more expensive (as you would expect), the author has pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale to the FTIA foster care program in Changsha, Hunan, China, so that other babies can receive the same quality care that her daughter Natalie did.

FTIA supports foster care programs in Hunan and Zhanjiang, China. These programs sponsor carefully selected foster families to care for children who would otherwise be raised in an orphanage. While the orphanages give the children the best care possible, in-home foster care allows for children to receive much more personal care and attention than an institution can provide.

Donations to these programs are used to provide foster care and better quality nutrition for the children. Participating foster parents receive training and education by our FTIA staff in China to better equip them to care for the children.

100% of all monies received for these programs are used for the children – nothing is deducted for any kind of administrative expenses. All administrative costs are provided for by FTIA. (FTIA, "China Foster Care Program")

The early years are such a critical time in a child's development that programs like this really can make a tremendous difference in the lives of those little ones. It's hard to begrudge a few dollars to such a worthy cause.

Buy it in hardback:

Pondering the history of 100 Good Wishes quilts

I love old-fashioned research. I practically leapt for joy in school the day we were assigned to examine old magazines and I found an early 20th century ad for Jell-o. (It was pitched as an upscale item, can you imagine?) I could probably pitch a small tent in the library stacks of any major university and live happily the rest of my days if I only could smuggle in a few necessities (a coffee maker, my sewing paraphernalia, perhaps a cat...).

When I was planning my wedding, I indulged my love of research by tracking down the origins of the traditions we included in our ceremony. Armed with this information, I set out to edify our soon-to-be-dumbfounded guests by explaining in our program what the heck we were actually doing up there slurping that sake and why there were origami cranes everywhere. Our guests seemed to find the presence of the blurbs tolerable enough – or maybe they just turned the page – and it brought me deep satisfaction to put disparate pieces together to form a meaningful whole.

In the case of 100 Good Wishes quilts, however, we may be facing a puzzle that we may not easily be able to solve: just where did the idea originate?

Using the keywords 100 Good Wishes and Bai Jia Bei, I performed a few online searches and skimmed through the results. Google returned a ream of blogs where people like ourselves cataloged their experiences creating these quilts. Many users seemed to have copied and pasted the following explanatory paragraph into their blogs verbatim without attribution:

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. (100 Good Wishes Project 2000, "Introduction")

A few sites referred back to a Yahoo mailing list for adoptive parents (a possible source for the quote) where the concept was apparently broached in the spring of the year 2000. The web site for this mailing list remains vague on the details, stating only that "adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents on the APC listserv learned of this tradition," not where they learned it, or from whom. Even the webmaster of this Ur-site admits, "We have not been able to find very much information about this tradition...," although she notes that one of the site members found a passage in a book by Pearl S. Buck that seems to capture its gist:

She must offer the child as an adopted son, by symbol, to other powerful families in her clan. Yet what friends had she? She thought and she pondered and she devised this plan. From the head of each of the highest one hundred families in the Empire, she required a bolt of the finest silk. From the silks she commanded the palace tailors to cut one hundred small pieces and from these make a robe for her child. Thus he belonged, by symbol, to one hundred strong and noble families, and under their shelter the gods would fear to harm him. (Pearl S. Buck, "Imperial Woman," p. 60)

This may be the closest we can come to a historical reference without access to a university library.

But, as another blogger points out, how much does the history matter? Although "we've got no real documentation," does the origin actually "matte[r] at this point since the tradition has established itself within the China-adoptive community"? Whether the custom of creating a 100 Good Wishes quilt has been practiced for hundreds of years in China or whether it was a more recent invention built on Chinese ideas, the idea of wanting to share the love and luck of 100 families with a baby is just as valid and just as meaningful. Even if it weren't a tradition before, it certainly is one now.

I cherish the hope that more evidence will come to light. In the meantime, I leave you with this quotation, as independent verification that the tradition did not spring fully formed from the head of an imaginative list member but probably is actually practiced in some parts of China today: "For those of you who have asked about the '100 Good Wishes' quilt, it is Chinese tradition in Northern China. I have a volunteer right now who is from that part of China. She explained that not only do they create quilts but they also make food and deliver it to the new family with their special wishes."

100 Good Dishes, anyone?

Intro from Down Under

Hello all. As Fionn said, this blog will be about the creation of a 100 Good Wishes Quilt for the Chinese baby that my husband and I are currently in the process of adopting. We are still in the early paperwork stages so it is still some way off, and we won't start asking for fabric until we are officially approved to adopt which, all going well, I expect to be about mid this year.

I know absolutely nothing about quilting but I do know about friendships, and I know I am so lucky to have a wonderful friend (who has never even MET me IRL, mind you) who has so generously offered to give so much of her time to do this for us. Thanks Fionn :).

A bit about us

Sandie and her family are in Australia. I'm in the U.S. We first met each other on a naming board about 7 years ago. If I recall, she was looking for a name for her second child at the time, while I was immersing myself in names as a passionate hobby. We've since taken up residence at another board, where naming is just one of the subjects that occupy our busy little minds.

Last year, Sandie and her family began the process of adopting internationally; they hope to add a little one from China to their family once they make it through the labyrinthine process. (You can follow the progress of her adoption and learn a bit about her and her family on her blog, Ashanti Child!)

Somewhere around the start of the year, Sandie made a comment on our bulletin board about a 100 Good Wishes quilt, providing a link to a site I had actually perused myself before. (I am a quilter and am always poking around the web looking for new ideas and inspirations.) I jumped at the opportunity to take on the project with her, admitting sheepishly that I had actually already been trying to figure out how I could do it as a surprise. The roadblock, of course, was that there was no plausible reason why she should turn over the entire contents of her address book to me without a really creative excuse; while I am as big a plotter and planner as the next person, creativity of that level just completely eludes me.

So, the quilt won't be a surprise, but I think working together just may be more fun - and I am sure there will be plenty of surprises along the way!

If you are adopting internationally, thinking of constructing a quilt yourself, or just passing through, I hope you'll consider following along with us on our little journey. I think it'll be a lot of fun.