April 7, 2004
Ross creates intricate quilt
'Joel's Garden' captures attention of American Quilter's Society
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Working with one-inch squares of fabric, each with an intricate floral pattern, quilter Judy Ross 'painted' a picture that captured the attention of judges in the American Quilter's Society.
Her quilt, "Joel's Garden," made for her parents Joan and Elmer, will compete in the amateur, machine pieced category at the society's Quilt Show and Contest. Her 82x85-inch quilt will be one of 425 other quilts in the show, with its vivid floral squares offset by rich hunter green borders.
The show will be held later this month in Paducah, Ky. Ross and some friends will attend the show, as they have together for the past four years.
"It was just really wonderful to find out that they accepted it," said Ross, who founded Ross Designs, a quilting business, this fall. "The show is fun and you come back with lots of ideas - and more fabric, more fabric, more fabric."
Ross worked on the quilt for two years, estimating that she put in more than 200 hours making it. She took cuts of her fabric from their home to match and searched out 16 different fabrics to make the quilt. She noted that her parents intend to use the quilt, not hang it as a showpiece.
"I gave it to my folks for a Christmas gift, I had to ask for it back for the show," Ross said, adding that a friend and fellow quilter recognized that the work was special and encouraged her to enter it.
Michelle Miller, owner of the Liberty Quilt Shop in Cedar, has worked with Ross for a few years, passing on commissions or selling quilts on consignment. She said that Ross's modesty about her accomplishment is a typical attitude of quilters, who often are so close to their works they can only see the flaws - which are virtually unnoticeable to anyone else.
"First of all, all quilters are very shy," Miller said. "They are their own worst critics and as a shop owner I run into this constantly. It is always my profound duty to say, 'Stop that!'"
Miller added that Ross is a very talented quilter who draws on her years of dressmaking to create exquisite workmanship. Pulling together a watercolor quilt is very challenging, merging and manipulating colors, textures and patterns to make a larger image.
"She is one of those ladies who lets the fabric flow through her hands, she does not resist it," Miller noted. "She is so artistic and in watercolor quilts you are painting a picture with little tiny squares of fabric, you have to have an eye for that."
Despite sewing since her Girl Scout days and a career as a dressmaker in Farmington Hills, Ross is relatively new to quilting. She laughingly recalls that she had a superior attitude about it for years. When an older sister tried to draw her into the craft, she was uninterested.
Four years ago, she finally began quilting and has loved it ever since. Dressmaking is a thing of the past and she now pursues her new avocation with passion. She and her husband, Tracy, a certified public accountant and financial planner, both run home-based businesses and Ross has set up a 480-square foot workshop in her basement.
There, her projects, tools, fabric and workstations meticulously organized. She even has nine future projects already arranged in bins, ready for her attention.
"The fun of quilting for me is just trying out new things," said Ross, who enjoys the challenge of making quilts on commission. "I don't get intimidated, I guess that's from my dressmaking; I figure if you can read a pattern, you can do it."
Ross also said she has mostly mastered a common quilter problem: fabric for fabric's sake. Although on a recent trip to Maine with her husband, she put 1,000 miles on the car to visit quilt shops, she said she usually buys for a specific quilt.
"Now I've gotten to the point where I buy fabric for a project, not for a stash," she said.