The Bai Jia Bei quilt in all its glory.

By Moya Smith

Claire Xiaolian Hope McKee was placed in the eager and loving arms of her parents on January 6, 2002, one day before her first birthday.

A year before our daughter was placed in our arms, they started to arrive. Messages of love and good wishes to a child we held in our hearts. Seven inch by seven inch pieces of cloth from Hong Kong and Newfoundland, from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, from British Columbia and Bangkok.

There is a tradition in northern China to make a Bai Jia Bei or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is the custom to invite 100 people to contribute a single square patch of cloth. The 100 patches are sewn into a quilt that contains the luck, energy, and good wishes of all who contributed to it. This quilt is then handed down from generation to generation.

I heard about this through an internet “e-group” on Chinese adoption and thought it would be a great way to show our daughter how loved she was before she even came to our family. I asked friends and relatives to send a 7" x 7" piece of material along with a smaller 2" square piece of fabric and a piece of paper with their wish or prayer for Claire. Those small pieces of material and the wishes go in a scrapbook so Claire will be able to look at her quilt and see who sent each square and read each message.

My Mom agreed to sew the quilt for me. She had never before quilted and jokes with me now that she thought it was just a crib-sized quilt when she took on the job. Instead my Mom hand quilted, with the guidance of a quilter friend, all the squares along with the border and binding. What a gift of love to her granddaughter.

The response to our request for quilt squares was overwhelming, We received 142 quilt squares, and the wishes and prayers were touching and full of love.

Marianne Adams, our coordinator at CHI, sent a double square that we made into the quilt’s center piece. It’s a mother panda holding her baby.

My youngest brother, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police like my older brother and my late Dad, sent a piece of his uniform pants with a gold stripe. My best friend from the days of junior high sent a square from a sleeper all five of her children had worn. Mark’s mom hand sewed her squares and sent squares Mark’s grandmother, a quilter herself, had sewn 30 years ago.

Messages included quotes from the Bible and from poems. My Mom’s best friend wrote a short story about sugar and spice (as in “that’s what little girls are made of”) coming from China. Our 10-year-old niece, Jena, wrote a poem. Mark’s Uncle Leo and his daughters wrote a long list of wishes including:

¨         We wish for you to pass your driver’s test on the first try

¨         We wish for you good health

¨         We wish for you a dream date for the prom

¨         We wish for you a carefree youth

¨         We wish for you brothers that will pick on you but won’t let anyone else

¨         We wish for you a life filled with laughter

¨         We wish for you many good hair days.

The four corner pieces of the quilt are Chinese characters that I cross-stitched. Mark, Claire’s dad, picked the Chinese character for “family,” I picked “faith,” big brother Rogan, 5, picked “little sister” and big brother Evan, 3, picked “happy.” Mark and I chose faith and family because we hope these are things that are important in our daughter’s life. Her brothers, so eager to meet their sister, expressed their love for her in their choices.