I’ve always been a bit of a jewellery nut. I didn’t get an allowance or pocket money but when I would go and stay with my aunt each holidays, she’d often have some sort of odd-job for me to complete to gain some spending money. She lived in the capital, and things always seemed more interesting around her place than home, so I’d set to whatever job she’d have for me and get my meagre spending money, which to me was huge!

I remember one year she’d let the grass grow in her yard till it was taller than I was! Then she paid someone to whipper-snipper it down, and she paid me to collect all the long grass stalks and pile them against the fence. Her yard was HUGE and she paid me only a couple of pounds for this, but I was happy to do it and when it was done, she’d take me to one of those little cheap stores that has a little of everything, and I’d buy up a heap of cheap pewter jewellery.

I cringe now and some of the things I’d wear as a child – a giant fairy pendant, for example – but my appreciate for jewellery isn’t diminished. So, in my opinion, there’s a few kinds of very good bangles. The sets of fine gold bangles where you wear around ten or more are very pretty, as well as wider metal bangles that have a nice motif or cut-out work is good too. I love wooden bangles, as well, as they are often so very beautiful, and solid stone bangles are very nice as well. I don’t like plastic ones at all, and wire-wrapping holds no appeal either.

The knitting pattern for this post is an absolute no-brainer with this Swatch Bangle pattern. I’ve not tried this myself, but I hope to at some point.

Alright so not all of these are in any way serious designs, or designs I would wear out of the house, but they are cute and fun so lets have a look anyway!

First up, necklaces! I like leaves so here’s Berocco’s Strozzi, which is a leaf lariat. Depending on the yarn, that could actually be a nice, outside the house, kind of thing. Here’s another leaf inspired necklace, also from Berocco, called Tornabuoni. Another, completely different necklace, called Indian Gold, could be really very interesting, and the pattern is so versatile, it could be completely different with different yarns. Back to leavs, How does your garden grow? is an awesome pattern. I wouldn’t wear it, but you could use much of it to adorn any felted bag or some such. Okay I just looked at the projects for that pattern, and they really are amazing!

Here’s the in-between necklaces, chokers! This lace one here, the Scallop Choker Necklace, is more of a collar, but is pretty anyway. The Chevette choker is pretty, and I like that it could be made up as a head band, too.

Now for some bracelets! I like the Button Bracelet mainly because of the pretty buttons, I’d use a finer yarn and needles for the pattern though, because I think it’s a bit bulky. The Knitted Bracelet is absurdly simple, but I think kind of cute! This is actually more how I envision knitted jewellery. Same with the Beaded I-Cord, I might even have to try this one myself! I really like the idea of it. Lastly, Purdita is a cuff, but a very pretty one, I must say!

To finish up, some rings. I like knitting that uses pretty buttons, I don’t know why, really, so here are two ring patterns that use buttons. Knitted ring with button, I know, what a nice change to see the name of a pattern actually reflect what it is! And another one called Knitted ring with button! What’s the chances, eh? Last one is a cute little double knit Valentine Heart Rings. I think this pattern is a good launching platform for other double knit motifs in rings.

Well there you have a bunch of knitting patterns, I hope you enjoyed this theme post!

So, in today’s set we’ve got a few things. There’s the regular crappy finance stuff like investments… Yeah, like most people who get junk mail are going to invest in Panama real estate? Then there’s more finance stuff, offshore financial service, which has always seemed dodgy to me. Must be from all the films where ‘bank account in the Cayman Islands’ equals ‘bad guy hoarding cash’.

Oh! Good ones! Clothing store catalogue, love those! There are some really cute little coats this season! Oh, oh! Jewellery catalogue, they are one of my favourites, too. I think clothes and jewellery are top, and then I like to look at ones for kids toys, because there are some seriously fun looking toys now days.

There’s always the annoyance of having to go out and put all these catalogues in the recycling bin after I’ve gone through them all, but that’s not too much of a bother. The funny thing is, I never even bother looking at the supermarket catalogues. I suppose I figure I will buy whatever I regularly buy and if something happens to be on sale, then woots! But otherwise, I don’t really care.

On a side note, my cold is even worse today. I feel like crap! Sinuses are really poorly right now, and even though I had eight hours sleep, I can barely sit up. Ah well, I’m sure I’ll get better soon.

Okay now for a knitting pattern… Riverbanks is one of this season’s Knitty patterns, and I really like the premise. It’s very pretty, mostly, though I’m not sure about the big lace diamonds over the head. What I really like about this pattern is how nice the basic set up is, and now much it could be altered to suit any particular person or yarn or stitch pattern.