Returning Tide Summer Lupine World Amethyst Ring

Lupine Love

and the Color Purple

At my house, 14 minutes south of the store, we have a one-acre freshwater marsh with cattails and a stream that runs through. In June every year, lupine appear. And although Lupine is classified as an invasive species (lupine arrived in Maine in the 1950s), most of us in the neighborhood love them. In spite of the fact that we have an invasive species committee in our neighborhood, we’ve left these flowers alone. They have spread and now fill 20% of the marsh. The bees also seem to be quite delighted with this purple honey crop of flowers. I would agree; beauty wins out in this contest. I’m looking forward to our late spring lupine invasion on the coast of Maine and in my neighborhood.

And yes, it may sound early to be talking about summer, but summer is just a week away.

Returning Tide

Summer Lupine Amethyst Ring

In the last 30 years, we’ve done serious explorations of the coast of Maine. We’ve traveled by car: BMW, Jaguar, and truck. By boat: Boston Whaler, lobster boat, mailboat, by plane, and even by helicopter. We’ve traveled the Maine coastline, and we’ve gone to remote off-shore islands.

Why? To understand, to see, to explore, to experience the coast of Maine more deeply. We also have collected, over the years, beach stones for our “Maine Coast” bracelets.

Our expeditions to the coast are rather unique. Along the way, in numerous locations, we have seen fields and streams with stands of purple lupine that sweep down to the shore, which is why we’ve created our new Returning Tide Summer Lupine ring. It’s beautiful, it’s luscious, and it will look great on your hand because of its color, brilliance, sweeping flow lines, and its low, close-to-the-finger comfy feel.

Returning Tide

Summer Lupine Amethyst Ring

This is our classic Returning Tide ring design, set with an 8 x 6 oval world amethyst. The gem has checkerboard faceting giving it an almost “lupinesque” patterning of flashing purple light. Great color, not too dark, not too light, it’s a perfect purple color that gives you the opportunity to take a drive down east whenever you wish and stand before a field of lupine spreading to the shore on a returning tide.

Returning Tide Style

Our family has a summer cottage at Higgins Beach in Scarborough, Maine. Four generations of our family have returned to the beach for nearly 100 years. Each year in June, I prep the land and cottage for summer. I work hard. I work steadily until the tide enters the tidal creek where our cottage is located, and then I sit and watch. It doesn’t matter what time of day the tide comes in; its arrival is a matter of importance I never tire of. There is something so compelling about the rising tide…the certainty, the predictability, its strength, the moon is pushing and pulling the water to shore, and although I can’t see the invisible force, its power is obvious. I love to watch this surge of water that returns to flood the land twice a day. Water, as it flows in and particularly around the edges of docks, creates flow lines. I see the flow lines in this ring, which we call the Returning Tide.

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
Clipper Ship Journal Entries

Read Keith’s Gem Expedition Dispatches