You HAVE to make your wishes known. Even then you may not get the item or items, but then you don't have to "beat yourself up" as well as the relative who never gave a thought to ask you if you wanted the item before giving or selling it. I left home as soon as I got out of high school. I would have gone as a toddler, but had no job skills then. I joined the military and only took what we were permitted to have with us. All I ever got of anything I left behind fit into a small cardboard box. In later years, while I was visiting my folks, my mother offered me some family heirlooms and I gladly accepted. They were things I really wanted. However, I couldn't take them with me when I left to go home at the time. When I came back to get them, she had sold them at the auction because she forgot she had given them to me. I take no blame for that so I don't beat myself up about it, but it still tics me off as inexcusable Mom behavior. My husband's story is much the same. When he joined the military, his mother gave everything of his away, including his bed, which he had planned to sleep in when he came home on leave.
Item #2: What the heck does it matter to which section of this quilting board a thread is posted??? Read it or don't read it, your choice!