My favorite piece of jewelry

It's time for the JAC blog carnival again and this time the topic is "my favorite piece of jewelry".
My first thought was "that's impossible" and it actually is. I don't have just one favorite. After all there are so many reasons to love jewelry.

I have collected quite a few pieces over the years. There are the gifts, there are the things I made myself and wanted to keep for one or the other reason, there are those I bought myself, there are those I inherited (which I really count as special gifts), and then there are those I would like to have, but can't - like the Hope Diamond ;-)

When I'll show you a few of them, you might be surprised.
These are favorites of mine not necessarily so much for their bling value or for working with all of my outfits, not because they are made with my favorite stones or because they make me feel elegant and classy (yes, I do have those, too). They are not this Gollum's preciousssss (although I actually do own the one ring and love to wear it around the neck like every good little Ring-Bearer who knows what's good for him or her).
These are favorites for their stories and the memories.

I have told you about this bracelet a few years ago. It came to me after my grandmother died who got it from her sister who got it from her husband whose first wife it had belonged to before that.
It's representative for the different pieces of jewelry I have that used to belong to my grandmother.

Are friendship rings between girls still a big thing in these days? They were definitely a must have item in my time. There used to be a jewelry shop with two stores in town. One had the cheaper things and was regularly overrun by teenage girls, the other one had the more expensive items.
When my friend and I went to get our rings in 7th grade, we took a third friend along. You could always rely on having some fun with her. So we went into the shop and looked at silver rings and started trying them on. The saleslady was used to that and was very patient ... until our friend put a ring on and couldn't get it off again. She couldn't stop laughing while the saleslady looked more and more as if she were ready to cut the finger off.
Needless to say there were no fingers cut off that day. The ring finally gave up, and we got our friendship rings. I bet the lady was glad to have us out of the shop, though!

Not long ago I told you about my Latin teacher who hated the color purple. What I didn't tell you was that he actually gave me some purple things back after I was out of school, like a picture of a purple Porsche (he had an old red one himself) saying that not even the color could take away from its beauty.
He had travelled a lot and once he brought me this necklace home from Nepal. The fact that it wasn't purple was a bonus. I mean, can you imagine this in purple? ;-)

From a slim ring to a chunky necklace back to a dainty garnet ring. This and an amethyst ring were a gift from my sister after she started working. Some of my first little treasures ....

You won't be surprised to hear that I own several pieces of cat jewelry.
These cute earrings (from Brightstar 109) didn't seem to want to stay with me, though. I wore them to work and I kept losing them out of my ears, first one side, then the other. I found the first one on the floor, but the second one seemed to be gone for good - until I happened to go to the bathroom because I felt a weird scratching in a delicate spot. The earring had dropped into my shirt and managed to hook itself into the fabric of my, erm, bra. Not in the front, though, but in the back.
Sounds totally like something a cat would do, eh? Claire graciously sent me some new hooks when I told her the story, ever since those kitties don't get away anymore.

The last piece sticks out in this collection.
It's not small and it's not something I ever thought I would fall in love with. I visited a friend of mine, a goldsmith. He showed me some of his work which was beautiful, but not necessarily what I would have worn. We often joked about it. He thought statement pieces would work for me while I preferred it smaller.
This design, however, swept me away. For some reason my friend seemed to think that I only said that to please him and he tried to talk me out of it. I got miffed because I felt he didn't take me seriously, he got stubborn, and the visit ended in awkward silence while he drove me to the train station.
On the train home I got a text from him saying sorry, and did I really want the ring?
I wanted it and I got one custom made.
My friend passed away last year. I still miss him which makes this ring even more special to me.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post a little even if might not have been what you expected from the title.
If you want to hear other JAC members' stories, check them out here.

Echoes of Ela
Violetmoon's Corner
Jewelry Art by Dawn