Kite-Wind, Hope-Joy
Blue Sapphire & Diamond Earrings
From Cross’s Clipper Ship Trade Wind Collection
My grandfather Lin Cross had a beach house with a two-car garage. The left wall of his garage was covered with traditional triangular kites, all colors. He also had 3 fishing reels and poles because he would release his kites on monofilament lines. The three fishing reels had three different weights of line for differing wind strengths.
My grandfather Cross was a serious, focused jeweler and was a kid at heart. He loved what he could do with a kite in the wind. To him it was pure joy. There was the swift lift, the ascent, and with the pole he could play the line out, run the kite to the left, run it to the right, make it dart, dive and soar. He possessed remarkable maneuverability. He could get the kite so far out on the line, it was just a speck in the blue sky. My grandmother would come to the railing and call “supper” and he would reel it in like he was catching a big tuna in a fishing tournament.
These are perfect, high-flying blue sapphire diamond Kite earrings.
The Gems
Blue sapphire – Blue sapphire usually comes from Southeast Asia. Blue is a color nature feels generous with in this part of the world. We love blue, particularly blue that shows well after the sun goes down. We tend toward a lighter brighter true blue color in all of our sapphire pieces. Hardness is 9, which means it’s super durable and secondary only to diamond.
Diamonds – world sourced, cut in Belgium. Well-cut with a full complement of 58 facets, rating a 3 on our quality cut scale. Nice white color, beautifully matched. Hardness 10, which means this is the hardest, most durable gem in the universe…and because of its high white color, high clarity, and superlative cutting – it’s super brilliant.
Why a Cross Sapphire is the Best
We love blue. We know blue. We live by the blue sea, beneath summer blue skies. Our business is
located on a peninsula called Portland, surrounded by saltwater on three sides. We can feel the blue
ocean pulsing with every tide. From the rooftop of our building, we can see the open sea. Binoculars
show ships coming and going on a blue, blue sea.
We love blue sapphire: It is bright, brilliant and is amazingly durable. As the second hardest gem to
diamond, it is a highly wearable gem, ideal for rings. We love blue sapphire… we love it so much that we
have traveled to southeast Asia to find first-choice colors. We choose a lighter, brighter blue than most
American jewelers because it shows up best under a wide range of real-world lighting conditions. Our
blue sapphires look and perform best on everything from sunny days to a candlelit dinner for two.
We want your blue sapphire to dazzle you, dazzle your partner and everyone in any room you visit.
Cross’ blue sapphires are the best.
About the Trade Wind Collection:
Where does inspiration come from? Where do the creative sparks for design begin? For Cross’ new Trade Wind Jewelry Collection, we find ourselves drawn into the story of Captain John Henry Drew, from Gardiner, Maine. Born in 1834, he grew up the son of a Ship’s Carver, and went to sea at the age of 15, eventually becoming Captain of a series of clipper ships, and traveling from New York to China and back home, when that voyage took more than seventeen months.
Instead of carving or knotting or other hobbies that were characteristic of sailors, this mostly self-educated man read books, memorized details from newspapers, and wrote about his journey—his literal and his inner journey. His hand-written and personally illustrated journals tell us of his longing for Maine, for his family, and for “making something of himself”. He is very much like you and me, and it makes his story that much more compelling. He savors apples from home, as tasting better than apples from anywhere else. He imagines the scene he might see looking in the window at home, where his family sits, and he chastises himself for not getting more done at home when he was there.
The jewelry in our Trade Wind Collection is made by his great-great-great grandson, Keith. This young man went to sea as well, at age 18. As part of his service to the US Navy, his travels took him to many of the same places his great-great-great grandfather’s clipper ships visited. Keith also had a hobby unconventional for sailors— he had a fascination for gems and he studied gemology. He studied so that when his service was completed, he could become a jeweler. As Keith traveled the world, he collected exquisite gems, and after leaving the service and returning home, he mastered the art of fine jewelry making.
It is now decades later. We met Keith for the first time in March, 2014. We were impressed with his jewelry, and as we talked further, discovered he had a clipper ship sea captain ancestor and became intrigued with the parallels of his journey in life with that of his sea captain forebear.
The parallels in the two stories are expressed in the jewelry itself—the exotic colors, the flow of the designs, the attention to detail which is something passed down in this family—whether it is to protect the ship, its cargo and its crew, or to create a design that will last and protect its valuable gems, giving the wearer the same pleasure we experience when a ship at full sail goes by. You can’t help but stop and exclaim, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
We were hooked by this story, and by the jewelry. We think you will be too. In fact, we’re posting pages from Captain Drew’s journals from the Voyage of the Franklin in 1868. Take a few minutes to join in the journey, and think of those you love most, and rejoice if they are right there with you.
Read the Captain’s Journal Entries
Keith’s Gem Expedition Dispatches
