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The Godspeed, 1

Thursday, March 9th, 2006


In 1607, three ships set said from England for the colonies in the new world. One of those ships was the Godspeed. They landed in Virginia where the passengers founded the Jamestown Settlement. Next year, the settlement will celebrate its 400th anniversary. The state of Virginia selected these three ships for its State Quarter design!

As part of those celebrations, the historical association commissioned a new replica of the Godspeed, and Rockport Marine (in the town/harbor next door…I drive past every morning when I go to Curves) won the contract to build the replica ship. On Tuesday, they moved the ship out of the building, and today they moved it from where it was built to where they need to launch it, maybe 1/4 mile around the curve of road to the boat ramp into the harbor. As luck would have it, I went to Curves late, and got out just as they were movoing the ship down the street!!!!!! My guardian angels *knew* I wanted to see this “Grin!” These pictures show the progress of the ship as it moves from the roadway out of Rockport Marine, onto “downtown” Rockport (all five buildings of it), across the bridge, down the entry to the Marina park, to where it will stay while the mast is put in place. The ship will launch in about 9 days.

To learn more about Jamestown, check out these links: Virtual Jamestown, the History of Jamestown, and a site geared to kids called History is Fun.

The Godspeed, 2

Thursday, March 9th, 2006

The phone and utility workers were there in cherry-picker trucks to hoist the utility lines out of the way (first photo, on left). The first set of power lines, at the top of the hill in the first photo in the post above, were tied up…the high stern end of the boat barely cleared! The other lines, the guys literally held up with their hands so the boat could roll underneath (look at the guys in the stern in the second photo). It was fun to see all the folks out with their cameras. Best of all, the History Channel was there filming! Little ol’ Rockport Harbor’s gonna be on TV!

At the end of the small bridge over the creek that flows into Rockport Harbor, there is a rampway / road down to the Marina. Getting that big ship down that narrow roadway might have been the trickiest thing they did today! The next post has the final photos of getting the ship down, plus some really cool shots of the tackle and the masts (which were “garaged” in the parking area, presumably for installation this coming week).

The Godspeed, 3

Thursday, March 9th, 2006

Here are the final set of photos...can you tell I was totally enchanted with this? Better yet, about 16 months ago, I arranged a field trip for a cub scout den to visit the ship when they were first building it. I can’t find any digital photos, so I’ll look for some film prints and see if I can scan them. When we saw the ship, it was a keel, ribs, a little bit of the exterior siding, the rafters (which were also the joists for the deck), and some plywood and planks where the deck would be! What a change!

Here are some photos of the tackle and the masts:

The Godspeed, 4

Thursday, March 9th, 2006

Here are the final photos for today….the last few feet of the land journey, masts and tackle.

The final photo is from the “town” side of the bridge, looking back at the Marina park. The Godspeed is in the parking area–look where the water zigs to the right…the Godspeed is the brown/tan thing just left of the trees. In the middle ground, you can see a ramp down to a narrow channel. The Godspeed will be launched by movoing the trailer onto the boat ramp (at high tide!), and one inch at a time, making that VERY tight turn and sailing into the harbor.

The total bummer news is that the ship will be launched next Saturday—at the same time as Joshua’s Regionals Wrestling Meet in Belfast (40 minutes from the harbor)…sigh……. Hope they don’t sail out of the harbor that evening, because I want to see her afloat in Rockport!

So how do I pick color?

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

After all these “lessons,” someone might ask how I usually pick colors for my quilts. Usually, the idea for the quilt pops into my head, and usually the colors are fairly clear from the start. A rare exception was Circular Paradox, which began with a notion for a deep, space-dark blue background, a leftover nautilus shell from another quilt, and some of my brighter hand-dyes, but nothing more specific. In that case, I grabbed colors, laid them on top of the fabric I had selected for the background and then chose what worked best. The arrangement of colors, however, was deliberate…sprinkling warm next to cool, keeping a balance and, now that I look at it, a diagonal progression of warm colors from top-left to lower-right.

I’ve also been on an autumn kick for a couple of years—I love autumn colors, but with my skin tone, I can’t wear them at all. But my best friend is a gorgeous redhead, and she loves and wears these colors well. In playing and quilting and working together, dyeing fabric together, we’ve managed to cross-pollinate our color sensibilities, and now she’s using my teals, and I’m using her russets and oranges! (Gee….ya think we get along so well because we’re complementary ….ooooh bad pun, ducking and please don’t throw rotten oranges–grin!)

In cases where I’m taking my cues from nature, the pallette is set for me, I just have to look and read it and interpret it in fabric.

I finished “What Secrets Does the Forest Hold” (quilt below) this spring, inspired by the announcement last year that after more than 60 years, they have confirmed that the ivory-billed woodpecker, believed extinct, is still alive in the swamps of Arkansas! I dyed the background fabric specifically for this piece, a murky, swamp green. When I get a better camera, I’ll take another picture, because I really wish you could see the quilting in the background / green: more of the trees in the swamp-forest, and a silhouette of an ivory-billed in flight.

An older quilt, of Casablanca Lilies, has a background of cloth painted with thinned Setacolor paints. But it is thereddish- russet stamens (you know that stuff that stains your clothes?) that contrast so strongly with the green that pops in this quilt.

And that’s plenty for now. Next, I’ll talk about how I use the color wheel when I get “stuck.”