The Handmade Pledge Controversy: What Can Really Be Considered Handmade?

There is a website where people are pledging to buy only handmade for this holiday season and requesting that others buy only handmade items for them. Whoever started the pledge probably only meant for it to show support for small businesses instead of large chain stores and bring awareness to the fact that resources have traveled very far to reach you when they could be found locally. Instead it has become much more complicated and is causing controversy in the world of crafters as to what really can be called handmade.

The pledge has started a large debate as to what makes something considered handmade and is there any way to really completely stop supporting large organizations and sweatshops.

There seems to be the consensus that if you've assembled something yourself than it can be considered handmade. However, many of the items used to assemble handmade items are made in factories and sweatshops, and are mass-produced, the complete opposite of what you are pledging to support.

Some believe that in order for people to consider their crafts truly handmade they would have to spin their own wool right off the sheep, dye it using non chemical dyes, weave their own cloth, make their own beads, paper, glue, and any other materials they use.

Others believe that in order for something to be considered handmade it just has to not stay the way you bought it. It simply has to be put together in a unique way. For example, reconstructed clothing is altered by hand, and also reuses something that has already been purchased instead of buying something completely new. But what about making a garment from new fabric? Instead of buying a garment from a store that uses sweatshops you are making it yourself. But if the fabric you used to make your own clothes might have been made in a sweatshop, are they still handmade?

The Handmade Pledge

Credit: www.buyhandmade.org

Copyright: www.buyhandmade.org