Pssst - Pass It On!

I had to visit a place in the next town today, and during the drive, I thought about the Sad Thing there. Years ago, a talented person made a beautiful and useful object, and gave it to them. For whatever reason - I know little of the inner workings of this place - they have been unable to put it to use. I’ve offered to buy it, and been told they cannot sell it because it was donated to them. So the object has spent years literally hidden in the corner of a back room.

Although I make beautiful objects in a completely different craft, and of completely different materials, I think about this sad outcome a lot. The solution, of course, is not to stop making beautiful things, or to stop giving them away, or to stop accepting hand-crafted gifts.

The solution is to stop believing that a gift cannot be passed on. I can see that, ethically, an employee could not take it home for personal use. But couldn’t they auction it off to raise money for their organization, or for charity?

In the same way, if someone gives you hand knits, and they don’t fit or suit or are outgrown, pass them on! If the donor wonders why they never see the object, explain the problem and the joy you got from your solution. “Oh, the color kept reminding me of Aunt Maude and made me anxious, so I gifted it to her daughter, who loves the memories!” “Oh, tencel makes me sneeze, so I gave it to my son's teacher, who was overwhelmed - she’s never owned anything hand knit before!” “Oh, I’ve put on a few pounds and it was getting tight, and the next thing I knew Darling Daughter was wearing it all over campus!” “I’ve been downsizing, and not having anyone to pass it on to, I donated it to Goodwill. Don’t you love imagining someone finding that gem and feeling like they won a treasure hunt?”

The two parts are important. Explain the problem. Be upfront about what was wrong. Few people know of my aversion to alpaca, since it’s not a common one, and if I don’t mention it, I have no one but myself to blame when gifts of alpaca show up. And the joy in the outcome is important; most knitters are just glad someone is enjoying their efforts, that they’re not languishing in a drawer somewhere.

A gift means ownership has passed to you. The giver no longer controls what happens to the object, and most reasonable people understand that.