This post may contain affiliate links.
When I was in elementary school a teacher asked us, for a writing assignment, to write down what we would wish for if we could wish for anything. The majority of the class wrote “world peace”. This wasn’t because we were a class full of saintly children. We just knew that, even if we really would wish for lots of toys, saying that we would wish for toys instead of world peace was not a socially acceptable answer. So we all wrote down “world peace”, and our teacher praised us, and that was our introduction to white lies.
So what does this have to do with crochet? Well, since I’m the crocheter in the family, anytime anyone comes across an old knit or crocheted item they don’t want anymore they give it to me. My mother recently sent me these two crocheted afghans. They’re fairly decent size and obviously took a lot of time and energy to make. And whoever made them should be very proud. But..(gulp)…I don’t want them. I feel horrible saying that, like I’m devaluing a crocheter’s hard work, but I don’t want them. The color scheme just really doesn’t appeal to me.
The crocheted afhans in question.
There’s a scene in the TV show Wings, were Antonio, a waiter played by Tony Shalhoub, is talking about the nicest time someone ever sent back food. I’ve can’t find the exact quote, so forgive me while I paraphrase what the customer said when sending back his steak: This is a beautiful piece of meat. The cut is lovely, just the right amount of fat, but it’s just not prepared to my liking.
So yeah, the afghans are pretty and I appreciate the time and energy that went into them, but they just aren’t to my liking. And saying that makes me feel like a 10 year old admitting I would have wished for an American Girl doll over world peace.
I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with disliking those afghans. I think the best solution is to donate them to a shelter (of either the people or animal variety) where they will be used and appreciated.
Also, as a kid I hated assignments like that.
I think what makes this difficult is that as a yarncrafter, you know this type of work is usually devalued. Really, no one of us must love all things knitted or crocheted. But we do feel that pressure when we see people casually toss aside things that were made with great effort and love. I think you can let yourself off the hook. I actually like the colors of both, but I think color choice is very personal.