I Have A Notion® Holiday Sale

If you have not signed up for the IHAN® newsletter than you don't know that we are having an amazing sale through the end of the year.  

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT IS ON SALE

Do you know we will wrap your gifts and ship them for you?  100% Truth!!!  Just let us know - leave your comment in the Special Request area when you are checking out.

We have something for every one's budget.

Imagine how fun it would be to send your closest blogging, guild or sewing friends a tape measure for the holidays....you can do that and they are just $1.00 each! 

 Pin Keeps by Just Another Button Company

We also have these fun kits that you can give as a gift or make and give....it's up to you :)

Smiles,
Kelly

Thanksgiving....A TIME FOR GIVING THANKS & HAPPY HANUKKAH

 

My gratitude is overflowing.....I've learned so much this past year.  My heart and soul have stretched into places I did not previously know existed.   I know it sounds so cliche' but it is so very true....I would not be the person I am today without the loving support of my friends & family.

THANK YOU!!!

• For dropping in to visit and leave a kind comment
• For being so very supportive during difficult times
• For sharing your creativity and inspiration with me
• For extending your friendship
• For shopping at IHAN®

This Thanksgiving will be very different....

Momma won't be doing the cooking and she won't be the last one getting up from the dinner table.  

While I am still very sad that she has passed I also celebrate her life and I'm so very grateful that she was my mother.

I know many of you have also had many challenges and losses this past year.  Know that I keep you all in my thoughts and prayers and wish you nothing but the spirit of GRATITUDE this holiday season!

 

To all of those who are celebrating Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah!!!

Smiles,
Kelly

PS...yes, I still smile :)
PSS...Keep a lookout for the IHAN® Holiday Sales e-mail in your inbox soon.

Giving Thanks Blog Hop Winner Announced

I hope everyone enjoyed virtually  hopping around the world, I know I did.  It is after midnight and I'm still awake so I thought I'd give the random number generator some work.

 

Rayon Patchwork Pants

I know it is difficult to read, but the winner of the Rayon Patchwork Pants is Sally!   

Congratulations Sally :)

Smiles,

Kelly 

Don't Miss These

There are some ladies out in blogland that have put up some posts that I found excellent.  Just in case you don't follow all the same blogs as me, I thought I would share the links with you.

The first:
Blog: "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out"  ....the title alone cracks me up.  The gal's name is Kathy and she is a photographer.  Not only is she an excellent photographer but each Sunday she hosts "Song-ography."  You can see her most recent blog post, In The Spirit of Gratitude, HERE.

The Second:
Blog: "It's All About Purple."  This is Debbie's blog and she also participates in "Song-ography" by linking up Kathy's blog.  The post that blew me away today is about re-purposing an old TV Cabinet.  Wait until you see what she has done.  It may make you wish you didn't put yours on the curb for free.  For those of you who are quilters and sewers.....just think of the possibilities after you read her post.  Check out her post HERE.

The Third and definitely not in any particular order is, "Go West" Feral Woman.  This gal lives in Montana ans has some of the most beautiful photos of Big Sky Country that I've seen.  She also has a great sense of humor and she's fun to read.

Do you want to know something really strange?  Or should I say strange to me?...yes

I recently was introduced to these blogs by another friend, Karin, and my first thought was....these people don't quilt.  Hmmmm, like somehow if you don't sew or quilt it is odd that you would be writing a blog.  I think I'm way too deep into the forest now....ding dong :)

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday.  Here are just a few reminders/announcements:

Not only can you win lots of incredible prizes but you can also bid on some amazing Sewing and Quilting Related selections.  All proceeds, yes ALL, that's 100% go directly to the four charities listed.  Hop over to SewCalGal's Blog and check out this very Giving Event.

 Michele at the Quilting Gallery is hosting a Giving Thanks Blog Hop and Giveaway.  IHAN® blog is also participating and we are giving away some very fun Rayon Patchwork Pants.   There are 168 participants and it ends on the 26th....ya might want to take a few minutes and hop around.

 I wear my Patchwork Pants quite a bit.  They are so comfy and  wash up nicely.  Just think how fun they will be to give as gifts and to wear around the house.  Don't forget they are wonderful as Retreat Wear too :)

That's all from here.....just remember....just one stitch at a time.

Smiles,

Kelly

Giving Thanks – Quilters’ Blog Hop Party

Welcome to the Giving Thanks Blog Hop with Give-Aways!!!  How fun is this?  I'm so excited to have the the opportunity to meet penitential new friends and fellow bloggers. 


Welcome to the IHAN® blog.  For those of you who are visiting, IHAN® stands for "I Have A Notion®" which is an Internet based market for all of your Sewing, Quilting and Machine Embroidery needs.  Our claim to fame is that we are not interested in "selling" to consumers.... we are only interested in educating our customers so they will be satisfied and use the things they purchase from us.  You might want to check out what people say about their shopping experiences, CLICK HERE.  

Enough about that...lets get on with the Giveaway, shall we?

Our Giveaway is a very fun pair of Rayon Batik Patchwork Pants in your choice of size Medium, Large or Ex Large.

Patchwork Pants

Since my ankle was broken on Oct. 12th I have spent much of my time in lounge clothes.  My absolutely hands down favorite thing to wear are my Patchwork Pants.  They wash well and are extremely comfortable.    The Patchwork Pants have been added to IHAN® for the holidays.   I couldn't think of anything more fun than a free pair of lounge pants that will make you smile and others will ask, hey did you make those?  

Gratitude is a wonderful gift that helps the human spirit look beyond our immediate concerns and experiences.  Gratitude provides a mini vacation from all that troubles us.  Gratitude transforms what we have and what we experience into "enough" and it fills our spirit.  For me, it is more than saying Thank You....it is about living and exuding Thank You.

I am so GRATEFUL to be able to participate in the Giving Thanks Quilters Blog Hop Party and I'd love to know how you experience Gratitude.  Please leave a comment on this post telling me how you experience gratitude and I'll draw a winner using the Random Number Generator after midnight on Nov. 26th (so basically on Nov. 27th :).  If you would like to have an additional chance to win, become a follower on the IHAN® blog and leave an additional comment telling me that you are a follower and you'll be entered twice....it's that easy.

I would be very remiss if I did not THANK Michelle from the Quilting Gallery for organizing this very fun opportunity.  THANK YOU MICHELE!!! :)

You can find a list of all the participants of the Quilters Blog Hop Party by clicking HERE!

THANK YOU for visiting and I wish you an Endless Bounty of Blessings!

Smiles,

Kelly

Guest Post - The Right Tools Make All The Difference!

Hey, y'all, Karin here again, doing what I do best - hijacking Kelly's blog giving Kelly a hand while she is recovering.

 (just for the description....no one was hurt in the making of this blog post :)

The title of this post could just as easily have been "The Towels From H E double hockey sticks" but, it's not my blog, and I didn't want to offend any of  Kelly's dear readers and friends.  Be forewarned, this quick, short and easy project was anything but, and definitely proved the adage that the using right tool for the job makes the job a whole lot easier.

I had some Christmas fabric that I wanted to add to the bottom of the towels and I choose  this design from Embroidery Library.   I wanted to make the stars gold and the ornaments red...easy-peasy, right?

 (haha, little did I know...do you sense a trend here?)

(Photo Credit)

Well, you see all those little loopies and swirlies in the original design?  Can you imagine trying to remove even tearaway paper stabilizer from all those tiny stitches?  Darned near impossible, so tearaway is out.  I could use water soluble, but even after a good rinse, that often leaves the towel stiff until it's run through the washer and I didn't plan on doing that prior to gifting.  I don't like leaving cutaway stabilizer on towels that are to be used, so that was out too.  What's left?  Floriani Heat N Gone, of course!  It's very similar to water soluble, but it gets removed with a simple pass of a hot iron instead of water.  Perfect!

 So here we are, all hooped up, and ready to stitch.  I've got my towel and one layer of Heat N Gone hooped together, nice and tight.   I think puckers in machine embroidery are BAAAAD.

 I fast-forwarded a few stitches to see where I was going first, and it turned out my needle was at the top left star.  Perfect, as I wanted to make the stars gold.  You can hardly see it in the next picture, but I managed to get the first star gold, stop the machine, change thread and bobbin to red and continue stitching.  Easy right?  Haha, she says.

Apparently I wasn't paying super close attention (I might have actually dozed off...just sayin) and lo and behold, the needle went right into stitching the second star before I knew it.  It was almost half done before I was able to stop the machine.  Oh, but once it stopped, boy did I have a mess situation in my hoop.

 First I tried removing stitches with my trusty Seam-Fix seam ripper (I call that reverse stitching, and it's a stitch I use more than I care to admit.)  This wasn't your ordinary run stitch, though..oh no...it was double stitched to make it thick and visible.  The seam ripper just wasn't cutting the mustard; surely there was a better tool in the arsenal.....

 How about if I try my Famore Angled Tweezers?

 Yup, that's the right tool for this job!  Those little pointy tips were able to get under that thread and pull it right up for me to snip off.

Remember, though, I'm only a few minutes into this project and already I've made a mistake that cost me extra time and trouble.  What happened to easy and quick?  Surely I'll pick up the pace once I remove these stitches....after all, I've only got a short time to sew up 4 towels and this design is supposed to take 19 minutes to sew out.  Oh wait, they didn't count on me changing colors so I have to add  more time.... 

It will be a cinch to swipe the Heat and Gone with my iron and remove all the stabilizer.  Quick and easy..love that.  Once again, the right tool makes the job go easy.

Here is the design all stitched out.  You can see  the Heat N Gone - it's the shiny part.

 And, once again, those angled Famore tweezers came in handy to remove a couple of red underlay stitches that were peeping out from underneath the green swirls.  Again, the right tool makes the job quick and easy.  Thank you Kelly!

 

 By now, I've got about an hour invested in this 19 minute stitchout.....ugh...and I've got 3 more to go.  Ummmm...maybe not.  I decided that I will do ONE more towel with this design (gotta have a matching pair, right?) and I'll cut one more piece of Heat N Gone then wrap it up and put it away.

I fiddled with trying to get that roll back into the wrapper, but you know that didn't happen.  At least, not the way I wanted it to fit.  Hugo's Amazing Tape to the rescue!  I just wrapped the cellophane wrapper around the roll of stabilizer, wrapped a short piece of tape around it and called it done.  I know I can rely on it sticking to itself without sticking to anything else or leaving any gunky residue, and when I'm ready to use the stabilizer again, a lift of one corner and it peels right off.

 And where do I keep all my stabilizer rolls you may ask?  My sweet daughter gifted me one of those upright, hanging shoe holders and I just didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't have that many pairs of shoes...so I just put it away for a while.  I just hung it on one of those over-the-door hooks, and there ya go!  Might not be its intended use, but it sure works for me!  (right tool, remember?)

Why two hooks over the door?  Wait until you see the front.

 Here's what's hanging on the FRONT of the door...I had a $10 coupon for Kohl's last year, and this baby cost $9.99, so, basically, it was free and it was ME, so I just *had* to have it!  The "IN" sign turns around to show "OUT" when I'm not in the room.  Handy when Driver has to come looking for me and makes me smile every time I see it!  I leave it (and my other Halloween decoration: cobwebs) up all year..much easier that way.

 Brake's over, back to stitching....I've got another 19 minute stitchout, and then 2 more towels, whose design was still to be determined.   I got smart on the second towel and decided to fast-forward my stitching so that I could stitch both gold stars at one time without having to switch colors in the middle.  Quick, smart, and easy, eh?  Haha, I thought so too...little did I know.

 Here we are, both stars stitched nicely, so let's switch back to red, and go do the ornaments.

 Annnnnd, what have we here?????  Arrrrrgh.  I turned my back to review my fabric (do you ever second guess yourself?) and look what happened!  I'd forgotten the stitching order, and I stitched RED right over top of my (previously stitched) GOLD star!  Arrrrrrgh.  See, I told you, the towels from H E double hockey sticks!

 Well, use your imagination here....and trust me when I tell you that my Famore Angled tweezers saved my butt design once again.  And here are the two towels, only 3 hours or so later all ready for their fabric trim.  Good thing I picked such an easy and quick design right? 

 Here they are after their fabric trims have been added.  Good enough to gift, thanks to all the right tools from IHAN!

 Here are the other two towels I made.  Notice the design I chose?  Yup, it's a regular, solid and dense design.  With approximately 3 times the number of stitches as the airy tree design.  And these took about the same time to stitch out, and noooo, I didn't make ANY mistakes on these, and all I had to do was change the thread at each color stop and add the trim and fabric.

This design is also from Embroidery Library, and it stitched out without a hitch.  So now my towels are all ready to wrap up and fly to Alabama, with a few days to spare.  Thank Goodness!

(actual stitching results)

Thanks for sharing all the trials and tribulations of my "Towels From H E double hockey sticks."  I'm glad they're done, that's for sure!  And I'm super glad Kelly and IHAN have all the tools I need to make my "job" easier and quicker, not to mention take care of all those self-created issues.  These wonderful tools make GREAT stocking stuffers, so be sure to drop some hints around the house and see what turns up in YOUR stocking!

Thanks for reading!
Karin

Redesigning Perfect? Famore Cutlery Has

Just because I think all Famore Scissors are PERFECT doesn't mean the company isn't going to go and change something on me.

When I tried to re-order the Famore 6 inch Large Ring Comfort Handle Razor Edge Scissors I noticed they were out of stock.  WHAT?  Out of stock?  These scissors are a great seller and I really like the pair I have.

I called up Mr. Scissor Man, aka Brint, and asked him personally, "what have you done with my scissors?"

I learned the handles were re-designed to be slightly larger and a wee bit flexible for comfort.  Hmmmm...and I thought the previous design was GREAT!  (Personally, I never do understand why people update things.  After all, what is wrong with my 1970's hair do?)

The "re-designed" Famore 6 inch Large Ring Comfort Handle Razor Edge Scissors arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to give them some exercise.

Just as I suspected!  They still have the same sharp edges, cut excellently and have the same blue handles.  Did the handles have a scosche more room?  Yup they did.  OK, well....I guess the nuances of new handles have escaped me...OR... I've always been focused on the clean cuts I get with these scissors. 

 

Conveniently enough I just so happen to have an opinion on these redesigned handles.   Imagine that!

The scissors are still razor sharp and give excellent crisp cut edges and the handles are and were comfortable for my hand....and since they went to all that trouble....why didn't they make them with screaming red handles instead?  After all, I like the color red better than blue :)

I'm finished now...zipped lips on this subject.

On to posting a few pix I have taken recently:

 My girlfriend, Nancy, wore the cutest jeans...check out the mylar machine embroidery she put on the outside leg of her pants.  So stinkin' fun!  I need some fun pants.

Speaking of fun...another friend, Diane, took a class with Patsy Thompson and look what she made:

a lovely and cheerful tote

the back view and I just love it.

 

Lovely interior with lots of pockets....I'm jealous!

It's not like I can just hop up and go to classes and stitch with my buddies these days....AND.... I have been taking a few minutes to attempt some holiday gifts.

The girl who hates puckers....made a tea towel that has puckers :(

See what happens when I get the itch to make something and don't have access to all my supplies?  I knew better but just yearned to hear that machine hum along. 

I know someone else who developed the itch and I'll publish her post tomorrow.

Until then.....keep smiling and I will too!

Kelly