Take My Workshop on July 20 on Quilt Photography

The nonprofit Quilt Alliance will host a terrific one-day conference outside of Washington, D.C. on July 20 called “Not Fade Away,” about documenting quilts using tech tools and social media.

 

I’ve been working with others on the board to put this workshop together for months, and we’re so excited to be able to offer the tickets now. For a real bargain price ($45 for Alliance members, $55 for nonmembers) you will get a full day of lectures and hands-on workshops, plus a breakfast reception and box lunch, plus a ticket to see the biannual Sacred Threads exhibit, which will occupy the same venue.

 

NFAlogo

A lot of major players in all aspects of quilting will be here, from Alliance board members to quilting legends like Jinny Beyer, to an entire panel of A-list curators. You’ll learn a lot, and have a great time. 

 

Click here to get loads more information about the conference, and buy your tickets online. Honestly, we expect a lot of these workshops to fill up, so you would be smart to register soon. Attendees can choose their favorite workshops, and the Alliance staff will enroll them in two, one for the morning and another for the afternoon. 

 

Here is a description of my workshop:

Taking Better Photos of Your Quilts with Meg Cox
Meg Cox will provide quilters and quilt collectors with loads of tips and tricks. She’ll talk about lighting and placement, how best to hang a quilt for photography, and the difference between the requirements for online and print publications. Expect many examples of excellent quilt shots by famous quilters and photographers, along with some amateur “failures” (Meg will share a few of her own.)  An important part of documenting your quilts, for any use– including preserving the image for museums, historical societies and resources like the online Quilt Index— is taking a crisp and clean photograph showing both the entire quilt, and important highlights. There will be handouts, and a chance to play with some of the concepts covered: feel free to bring a smartphone or a digital camera to the workshop to try some different techniques, but this is not required.

 

I’m hoping to see you there!!!!

Tagged With: , , , , By May 2, 2013 Leave a Comment

First Printing Sells Out!!!!!!

Happy news!!!

The first print run of The Book of New Family Traditions (revised & expanded) has sold out, and Running Press has printed more.

Here is a photo from Local Author Day at the Princeton Public Library, which brought nearly 400 people to the library to meet 45 authors.  As a featured author, I got a big table up front, gave a reading, and did an interview with a local TV station. There was a fascinating mix of authors, and they put me at the table next to my good friend novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of Admission.

Author Day

 

Just so you know, this book is a perfect gift for mothers and mothers-to-be, so don’t forget Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12. There are some fun suggestions in the book for celebrating that holiday as well: I am partial to the one where your kids “mother” you for the day. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have your boo-boos kissed, and get tucked into bed after a story? 

By April 25, 2013 Leave a Comment

A Fun, Simple Project for Valentine’s Day

 

I’ve been making “heart books” for my son since he was a little guy, and I’ve come up with an easy and very adaptable design that I want to share.

 

The first book was called “10 Things I Love About Max,” and in successive years, they were titled “10 More Things I Love About Max.” Each of the 10-heart-shaped pages told about some aspect of my son’s personality or passions that I cherish, and these were decorated with stickers, characters cut out of old magazines and calendars, and in a pinch, my own drawings. 

Each morning, Max would wake on Valentine’s Day, and find one of these books hanging from the doorknob on his bedroom door. 

 

I always save up old calendars and magazines and catalogs that include images that lend themselves to this sort of personal collage project. The covers of the Heart Books are cut from thin cardboard from an old box, like a cereal box, or from the posterboard we always seem to have lying around for school projects.

A simple hole punch makes 2 holes, which are threaded with ribbon to make the handle. Just tying multiple knots at the ends of the ribbon, where it comes out the back of the book, secures the handle in place. 

I urge you to make Heart Books for your kids and your sweetie!

And here’s the thing: these also work great for birthdays, where the number of pages is equal to the birthday number. I swear, I once made a 75-page Heart Book for a dear friend. 

Plus– these work great for Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day.

Enjoy!!!!!

 

Tagged With: , , , , , By February 10, 2013 Leave a Comment

Milestone Birthday Sheets: A History of One Tradition

 

They say you should practice what you preach, and when it comes to family traditions, I have surely tried. 

I began to write my first book on family traditions while I was still pregnant with my son, and while I interviewed experts and families all over the country, I kept getting inspired to be creative in my own rituals and celebrations. Not everything worked, but if there is one single tradition of my own invention that really has come to be treasured, it is our “birthday sheets.” (Like many of my personal traditions, it is included in the new edition of The Book of New Family Traditions. For those who are not aware, all of my books go way beyond my own ideas and practices and are based on interviews with hundreds of other families.)

I remember when my son was about to turn 3. I was still working on The Heart of a Family and reading a lot of books about traditions in many times and places. I was fascinated by tribal rites of passage, and by the notion that when a person marks a milestone in his or her life, they should have a concrete feeling of actually crossing over a threshold. I felt that my son was changing profoundly from a baby to a child, as he entered nursery school, got potty trained, and experienced many other “firsts.” I thought long and hard about how I could somewhow create a physical barrier that he would cross through to symbolize and celebrate this change. Should I buy wood and erect something? Could I fashion a structure out of twigs, or tie two saplings together to make an arch? Everything seemed too complicated and beyond my skills. 

Somehow, a lightbulb turned on: I could create a threshold simply by taking a white bed sheet and painting it with symbols of “big boyness,” like underpants. I would tape the sheet over the entrance to the family room, and cut a slit up from the ground as high as my son’s head, and he would go “through” the sheet to find his presents on the other side. He would feel an element of venturing into the unknown, of taking a leap of faith, I hoped. That first year, I explained the concept while I held him in my arms, after a birthday dainner with cake and all the trimmings. He got very excited when I set him down, and he raced through the opening . I assumed he would immediately tear into his gifts, but the experience of racing back and forth through the sheet was just way too much fun to stop. Suddenly, these familiar rooms became mysterious: it was like playing hide and seek with an entire room!

 

My assumption was that these Milestone Sheets would be few and special. I already planned to make one for his 5th birthday, and expected the next to happen at age 10. But before his 7th birthday, Max began pleading for a sheet, explaining that he earned it. “I can do so many things I couldn’t do at 5!” he insisted. So that sheet was all about his important new skills, whereas the 5th birthday sheet led to a Pirate’s Treasure. 

 

 

 

For this 10th birthday, I had a lot of fun painting characters he loved, like the Pokemon called Pikachu, and also Bart Simpson, who was (and always will be) 10 years old. 

 

For the milestone sheet at 13, I again painted a lot of my son’s favorite things, including a wizardy looking woman of unknown species from World of Warcraft, the video game, as well as the mean cat Bucky from the Get Fuzzy comics. I also added 13 lizards, one for each year (and for luck), because my son owned and loved lizards. 

 

Interestingly, the sheets for age 10 and 13 never got “cut” up from the bottom, because my son felt they were too precious. He decided to go around them into the family room instead.  

I thought that his 13th birthday would be the end of the sheets, but before he turned 18, Max informed me that he very much wanted and expected to return to the tradition for this major coming-of-age. Unfortunately, this happened around the time of Hurricane Sandy and we lost power for a week, just as I was struggling  for an inspiration of how to illustrate this milestone on cloth. Eventually, I grasped at the idea of the unknown, that Max was soon to leave us, after this senior year of high school, and he truly was entering the mystery of his adult identity. I decided to illustrate this point by cutting question marks out of a bunch of fabrics that represented things that Max loved, like reptiles and Japanese Anime. I even found some fabric that included a map of Italy, one of the places Max hopes to visit someday. 

 

I also decided that to signify the milestone of Max striking out on his own for real, he should cut the sheet himself, for the first time. So I drew a dotted red line down the middle, as a guide. That turned out to be a pretty powerful moment.

 

I’ve saved all of these sheets, and Max has asked that eventually I should cut out his favorite bits and make a quilt or wall hanging. I explained that since I used water soluble paints, this can never be washed, and he’s cool with that. The lesson in all of this to me is that the simplest materials can help us celebrate those we love in very profound ways. Clearly, I’ve got only average artistic ability, but I found a way to make these birthdays really stand out and feel special, to help him really feel more palpably a sense of growth and change. I share this with you, hoping that some part of it speaks to or inspires you in your own search for making meaning. 

Tagged With: , , , By January 20, 2013 Leave a Comment

Looking Back: A Review of 2012

 I was inspired by my friend Leslie Tucker Jenison, who posted a wonderful series of photographs about  her year. This made me realize that while there were many challenges in 2012 for me and mine, there was alo a great deal of joy and beauty. 

 March: Quilt Alliance board meeting in Nashville, here w/exec director Amy Milne. Due to a hurriance, we were evacuated early!

 

Spring Break: the first of many college visits with my son, Max. Here he is at Amherst.

Work-in-progress: a house quilt for the Hun School gala.

For my birthday in mid-March, I visited the Museum of Art & Design in NYC…

And had lunch with my dear friend Wendy Kwitny.

April: Another trip to NYC, for the opening of an art show with quilts by the fabulous Luke Haynes. Here I am with another Alliance board member, novelist Marie Bostwick.

Grounds for Sculpture is one of the BEST culture treasures of New Jersey.

I went with Gerry DeGeorge, an awesome woman who is married to my husband’s cousin.

June: Yippeee! A book launch party for the revised edition of The Book of New Family Traditions. 

July: A Pasta Potluck lunch on the deck with some girlfriends, all in my magical yoga class.

More college visits: here at Brown in Providence, Rhode Island. A reach school.

 

August: Quilt Alliance board meeting in Nebraska, where we had a wondrous add-on trip to Lincoln, to visit the spectacular International Quilt Study Center. Curator Marin Hanson is on our board.

So many great family memories and sunsets at the Jersey Shore!!!

Good eats, too.

 

September: Quilters Take Manhattan 2.0 was another awesome Alliance event. Here I am with one of our keynote celebs, Denyse Schmidt.

The room was crowded, and the crowd was pumped!

I had two surgeries in September, figuring I might as well pile on the misery to make it shorter. But it was more intense that way. Here with stitches from Mohs surgery to remove skin cancer on my forehead.

Daily walks were part of my “therapy,” and I tried to fashion them into a compelling ritual to increase the likelihood of completion.

October: my recovery weeks were punctuated by a quick trip to LA, to tape a TV segment on Thanksgiving traditions. Here a shot of the hipster hotel they put me up in, close to Santa Monica’s glorious beach.

Late October/early November: Hurricane Sandy is definitely one of the more memorable events of the year. Here we are trying to eat up the ice cream when the power went out. Who knew it would be out an entire week and then some!

December: all year long, I continued to write for multiple magazines and newsletters, often about quilts. Here is one of my favorite quilts of the year, about which I wrote a story for the December issue of The Quilt Life. This is called “infinite Gratitude,” and it is a red and white Dear Jane quilt made for quilt collector Joanna Rose by her niece (with help). Rose’s collection of red and white quilts was displayed at the Park Avenue armory in NYC last year, in the much-buzzed about Infinite Variety show.

To end the year, a sweet photo of my grand babe Lucy (who calls me Queen), at her parents’ home in DC. She is here with darling Luna, a dog owned by my husband’s ex-wife. 

Happy New Year to all!!!! I hope you will check back to this blog occasionally to see how my 2013 is going. 

Tagged With: , , , , By January 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

Good Reading: My Traditions eNews, Winter Edition

To everyone who reads this, I wish peace and hope and love will guide you and inhabit you throughout the holiday season.

If you care about ritual and celebrations and want to deepen your own traditions, you may enjoy reading my regular newsletter on the topic. I’ve been researching and writing about tradition for nearly two decades, and writing a newsletter on the topic about 10 years. I recently switched to the Constant Contact format so I could include photos and reach a larger audience.

 

Click here to read my Winter edition. And find out why I took photographs of my own two feet every day for many weeks. 

Tagged With: , , By December 22, 2012 Leave a Comment

Family Traditions for a Grieving Nation

The senseless slaughter of 20 innocent schoolchildren just 10 days before Christmas Eve has left a nation of parents weeping. We feel hopeless and helpless, and fear for the safety of our own kids.

 

 

 

 

 

But we aren’t helpless. That urge we feel to hug harder is not just primal, but powerfully effective. The comfort that we can give to our children — and ourselves — by clinging to our daily and holiday traditions is not transient. 

No, we can’t promise there will never be another madman with a gun. But we can start to heal by using our traditions to celebrate the love and closeness we have now.

Psychological studies have shown that if regular rituals and celebrations can be continued during difficult times, they give children a lifeline to cling to even in the worst chaos and suffering. I’m not talking about specific rituals used by a community to heal together from atrocities, like when the survivors in Oklahoma City gathered by a tree that had survived the blast and together poured water over its roots. I’m suggesting that, especialllly for young children, the most important ritual is the regular bedtime story and hugs, and hanging the Christmas stockings and making cookies, and all those comforting, familiar rituals. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read about a United Nations study of Bosnian children whose villages were bombed and their parents killed. So-called talking therapies did little to help these kids rebuild their psyches. But then authorities got the idea to help re-create some of the festivals and other rituals that had filled their childhoods, and for many, having that continuity to hang onto made it possible to go forward. 

In this country, studies of families plagued by alcoholism also showed an outstanding result: in families where alcoholic parents managed to maintain such regular traditions as holiday rituals and birthday celebrations, their kids were less likely to become alcoholics themselves. 

The policy issues about important questions like better mental health treatment and gun control must be addressed.

Bur right now, don’t just hug your children so tightly that they squirm, make sure you don’t neglect your daily your daily silly games and songs. Light candles and sing a hymn you all love each night. Gather around your Christmas tree before bedtime and talk about which ornaments tell the stories of your life together. Bake cookies, and share them with family and friends. 

 

 

 

 

You have the power to do this every day. And now it means more than ever. 

Tagged With: , , , , , By December 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

More Great Reviews!!!!

 I feel guilty about not blogging more, but I’ve been overwhelmed with deadlines. And then, there was that whole week we lost to Hurricane Sandy, here in New Jersey.

Now that things are getting back on track, here are a few recent reviews I want to share.

First off, a starred review in the November 15 issue of Library Journal called The Book of New Family Traditions “Browsable, readable, doable and lovable” and added, “This stellar offering belongs on the shelf of every library, and every kid’s home.”

Read the full Library Journal review here.

The Momma’s Bacon blog gave me a terrific review here.

As someone deeply involved with both family traditions and the modern world of quilting, I was delighted with this warm review from the hip new publication for quilters called Generation Q. Here is a photo from the review, which talked about the wonderful Christmas quilt tradition in the book. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Finally, I was delighted when Trina Dalziel, a British illustrator who did all the charming drawings in my book, blogged about her experience working on The Book of New Family Traditions.

Here is her blog post, and below is one of her delightful illustrations for the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Trina!!!

 

I’ll be back here soon with a new post. Meanwhile, don’t forget that The Book of New Family Traditions makes a great holiday gift for a young family still trying to figure out how and what to celebrate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tagged With: , , , By November 30, 2012 Leave a Comment

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

http://share.yhoo.it/WFx

Here is a short segment from Yahoo! TV’s Away We Grow, in which I shared some fresh ideas for celebrating Thanksgiving. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!

Tagged With: By November 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

School Rituals for the First Day & Beyond

 

     One of the mothers I interviewed for The Book of New Family Traditions practices this wonderful tradition of writing inspiring messages in colored chalk for her daughters to find as they walk to school. If your kid only walks to the bus stop, you can still write a note or make a silly drawing.

     There’s another mom in my book who created an instant photo book for her kids the day they began kindergarten: she took photos of them waking up, dressing, brushing their teeth, eating breakfast and boarding the bus. While they were gone, she printed photos on her home printer, pasted them to cardstock, then took them to Office Depot to be laminated and turned into a book. 

     The first day of school is a big deal and celebrating it is a good way to demonstrate to your children that education is valued in your family. All transitions are ripe occasions for ritual and celebration, but the start of school each year is an especially major marker, a rite of passage that gives us an opportunity to think and talk about our children’s growth, progress, aspirations and accomplishments.

     But it’s also important to think about school rituals for the weeks and months to come, rituals that will help keep your children focused. So, take a little time now and think about how you might use ritual to celebrate but also motivate. Like the family in my book that has “Monday Sundaes.” The kids are slow getting started on Monday mornings, so the mom declared that everyone who was dressed and in the kitchen by a certain time would get a sundae, made of frozen yogurt, fruit and nuts. Maybe you want to do something special on Fridays, to welcome the weekend?

     One of the single most important things to consider is study rituals. The earlier you start good ones, the better off your student will be throughout school, and beyond. One of the single smartest things I ever did was declare that studying was the top priority after school, with only a very limited play period and a snack before starting homework. Unlike many rituals that did not stick with my son, I’m happy to say that this ritual is so ingrained at this point, that even in high school, he still does his homework first thing even on a Friday.

     I’ll be coming back periodically with other fun family traditions as the weeks and months go by. Now it’s time to take my son out shopping for new school clothes: probably his least favorite school ritual!

Tagged With: , , By September 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Happy Birthday, America!!!!!!!!!!

In The Book of New Family Traditions, I write about celebrating the fourth of July as the birthday of America, and that’s a good way to get into the real meaning of this holiday with your kids. We have a tradition of always reading aloud from the Declaration of Independence, which is easily found online and is often printed in daily newspapers on this day. 

Here are some ideas for your birthday bash:

*Uncle Sam hats for party toppers

*red, white and blue bunting and decorations

*cupcakes or cake for desert, and sing “Happy Birthday, America” after lighting and blowing out the candles

*have everyone at the party talk about what freedom means to them

*play Sousa music and march around, or sing some patriotic standards: if you forgot some of the words, click here. 

 

There are more ideas for this holiday in the book, including how to write your own family constitution, and the best fireworks apps. Yep, there are tons of smartphone apps featuring fireworks. What a country!

Have a blast! Here’s my favorite treat for this holiday. 

 

********************************************************************** 

This recipe comes from the July/August 1996 issue of Cooking Light.

Berry Patch Parfaits

2 cups raspberries or blackberries

1/4 cup sugar, dividid

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 (32 ounce) carton vanilla low-fat yogurt

12 raspberries or blackberries (or blueberries)

1/4 cup frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed

 1. Place 2 cups raspberries in a blender or food processor, process til pureed. Press pureed berries through a sieve into a microwave-safe bowl, and discard seeds. Add 2 tablespoons sugar and cornstarch to puree: stir with a whisk until blended. Microwave at high 3 minutes or until thick and bubbly, stirring halfway through. Spoon 1 tablespoon of berry mix into each of 4 (10 oz) stemmed glasses. Chill, uncovered, 10 minutes.

2. Spoon yogurt onto several layers of heavy-duty paper towels: spread to 1/2 inch thickness. Cover with additional paper towels, let stand 5 minutes. Scrape into a bowl using a rubber spatula. Add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar to yogurt, stir well.

3. Divide yogurt mix evenly among glasses. Top each with 3 tablespoons of berry mix. Cover loosely: chill at least 2 hours. Top each parfait with 1 tablespoon whipped topping and your choice of berries (I add blueberries for the red, white and blue look). 

4 servings. 

By July 3, 2012 Leave a Comment

June 14: WANTED: Your Fun Summer Traditions!

Isn’t this a glorious time of year? Gorgeous weather, delicious fresh fruit, just throw on your shorts and flip-flops, and feel the warm breeze on your skin. School is out, the kids are frisky, not yet bored.

I’ve been asked to write a magazine article about summer traditions, and I could really use your help. So, I was wondering, what sorts of things does YOUR family do to celebrate this season fully?

Do you eat special treat foods at your barbecues? Always go to this certain park or festival or outdoor concert? 

When my son was little, we made a ceremony on the last day of school of going straight to the public library to sign up for the awesome summer reading program: the kids kept cute charts about each book they read, and at the end of the summer, they could cash them in for bookmarks and other prizes. And always, on that day, we would go out for the first summer ice cream cone.

What are your special foods, hang-outs, games, party activities, neighborhood fests?

Do you have a cousins camp, or special made-up sports?

Share your comments here, or send me an email at meg@megcox.com. 

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!

By June 14, 2012 Leave a Comment

June 12: Memory Jar for Father’s Day!

This is a simple but profound way to celebrate your father, or the father of your kids.

I’ve taken a strip of cloth and sewn a hem with white embroidery floss, then stamped the letters onto the fabric. But it would be easy to use a paper or ribbon label, marked with crayons or Sharpies. Add photos if you want, glue one right on to the jar. 

The strips of paper are written notes about moments or activities that stand out, things like fun vacation times, or a day when you beat your dad at cards or tennis for the first time. Refer to jokes, family code words for things that make you laugh. Remind your dad of a disaster that has gotten to be a funny family memory. 

There are lots of ways to make this personal, but I guarantee, the recipient will be touched.

Whenever he has a bad day, or just needs to be reminded of how much he is loved, this jar will be there to remind him. 

Oh, and I would love if you can send me a photograph of YOUR memory jar! Send it to meg@megcox.com, and I’ll post it on  my blog and Facebook page. I wish my Daddy were still around: he would love this!!

 

Tagged With: , , , By June 12, 2012 Leave a Comment

June 5: Taking My Book to the Booksellers Expo

The Contortions it Takes to Sell a Book

 

I always love going to the annual BEA, Booksellers Expo, where booksellers and librarians come to meet  authors.  For years, I covered publishing for the Wall Street Journal and traveled all over the country to attend the BEA, but in recent years, it has been held annually at the Javits Center.  It’s always a thrill to pick up the early buzz on fall books and get to see and meet some of the authors I most admire. But there is a special thrill to be an author there (despite the obvious freak-out that competition is ENDLESS.)

 Anyway, I was scheduled for a half hour session of signing copies of The Book of New Family Traditions in the Running Press/Perseus Books booth. The good news and the bad news is that the 75 books the publisher brought to give away evaporated in less than 15 minutes — there was actually a line of booksellers and librarians waiting to get a signed copy. Some of those in line included old friends, including Lynn Rosen, who edited the first edition of the book, and whom I hadn’t seen in years. Those who came too late to get a copy were so sad.

Every day, I feel overwhelmed by all that I should and could do, but this was a total feel-good day.

What can I say? A front row seat for a breakfast panel featuring Stephen Colbert, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz and Norwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbit? Priceless. 

Followed by lunch with my awesome agent, Chris Tomasino. 

Did I mention that I came home with 4 canvas bags STUFFED with free books?

So much treasure.

Life is sweet. 

P.S. The Alvin Ailey dancer above, whose name is unknown to me, was promoting a very cool new photography book for fall called Dancers Among Us by Jordan Matter.  There are plenty of towers I would climb to help my book make its way before the public. Just so you know. 

By June 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

This Rocket Has LAUNCHED!!!

The author speaks!

 

My book launch party on Saturday night was a blast!!!!

Now, it is true that the bookstore neglected to get the press release out in time to meet local media deadlines, but the end result is that almost all the people who came were close friends.

It was so awesome to celebrate the book’s release with friends from every part of my life: quilters, writers, former colleagues from the Wall Street Journal, friends from church, my yoga teacher, my Pilates teacher (really, I should be in MUC better shape), and the librarian from my son’s grade school.
Not only that, almost everybody bought at least 2 books: one for themselves, and one for a gift.

There was such an outpouring of cookies, I was able to supply the church picnic the next day.
Thank you so much for all my dear, dear friends who came out and partied with me on this milestone day.

Special thanks to my pal Deb Hunter who not only stayed and helped me clean up the church kitchen, but hauled the garbage all the way to the dumpster and stayed behind to make sure I managed to lock ALL the many doors to the church.
My heart is full!!!!

Tagged With: , , , By June 4, 2012 Leave a Comment
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