I ordered something online at joann.com, on sale of course, and every few weeks they would send me another email that it was still backordered ... still backordered ... several months went by. Finally I did a google search for the item, found the manufacturer, and bought it directly from them for less $$, and they shipped it right away. I will admit I got the info from joann.com's picture, which helped me in my search, so they are good for something LOL.

beeohio, glad it turned out o.k. for you, but that manager needs some training in people skills. I posted some months back about my experience with Olive Garden and how both the head office and the local chain responded. I also had a problem a long time ago with a Macroni Grill and did the same thing. The Corporate person couldn't have been nicer. She said she was grateful I took the time out to contact as so many times people have a bad experience, say nothing, and then bad mouth the restaurant/store. How can they know they have a problem if you don't let them know?

Hi, I signed up for Joann's online ads a couple of months ago, get those ads through email and have received all the ones mentioned. Although I haven't tried it, it's my understanding that you can print the coupon out more than once and use it. The ads came through pretty quickly when I signed up. The sign up is at Joann.com. Linda

Newhomebuilder, if there were an actual link to the spacing discussion I mentioned, I'd be glad to post it, but decorating isn't my hobby, it's my profession, and the discussion was a one-on-one consultation with an actual paying client--my favorite kind! They call me on the phone & we chat or we email back-&-forth. They don't pay for anything but my taste & knowledge and I don't have to leave the house. It's a sweet deal. OK, Curtains 101: In general, I always suggest that people let their workroom figure out all the technical issues--let's face it, custom curtains are expensive--but this was a case where I needed cheap, stop-gap curtains that I could get hung within a week, so I took the cheap & easy route, Thiose yellow curtains are nothing but cheap unlined linen panels from IKEA--tab-top panels, at that, which I don't like--that I hung upside down & trimmed with some antique fringe to make them not look so generic & IKEA-ish. The brass rings, like the finials, are antique, and their number, divided by four (two panels times two windows) determined the number of rings per panel: 21/4 = 5 I can't remember how wide the panels were, so let's assume say they were 48 inches. One ring at each end makes for 4 spans of fabric with three rings between. But eleven inches would be way too much space between rings, even if 48 inches were not way too wide for a 32 inch window, because the fabric would droop something fierce when the panels were pulled aside, and when the panels were fully drawn across the window, they'd still ripple in & out--and I wanted the top to be flat this time, with no visible pleats. That meant the pleats would have to be on the backside, and the front width of each span should be barely above eight inches--32/4 =8. But the total width, being 48, meant that the extra 16 inches would need to be taken up in the backside pleats. So, there there are 4 spans between the end rings, but only 3 rings, meaning that 5 1/3 inches of excess fabric needed to go into those hidden pleats at each of the inner rings. Since I didn't have time to sew--and because, having just moved, I had no idea where the box with needle & thread was, anyway (I don't own a sewing machine)--I used clips, also from IKEA, and I gathered the excess fabric in two pleats per ring, then threaded the hook on each clip through the small ring on the bottom of the big curtain ring. Once I got them all up, I sprayed them with hot water from a squirt bottle to relax the folds from packaging--no idea where the box with the iron was, either--and the extra weight of the water stretched the curtains at the same time that it softened the wrinkles, so the ugly tabs were easy to fold under and out of sight at the bottom of the panels. After they were dry, I attached the fringe with a series of big loose stitches that I can pull right out when it's time to wash the curtains. Sure, it's makeshift, but it's still better than the method used by the great French decorator Madeleine Castaing (and if you only splurge on one decorating book this year, I suggest the new Castaing book by my friend Emily Evans Eerdmans) who attached her fringe with plain old straight pins. Drawing the curtains at night must have been a painful experience. Then again, Mme Castaing's false eyelashes were painted right onto her face and in her later years, she kept her wig in place with a chin strap. A black elastic chin strap. What a character! But I digress. Get the book. Is my method the way a professional would ever make curtains? Hardly. But I'm a decorator, not a curtainmaker, and I was in a hurry. And a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, ya know? Besides, the curtains in my old apartment were the same basic concept--unlined linen, except that those happened to be not curtains at all, but my great-grandmother's linen sheets, which were waaaay too big for my 24-inch wide antique bed, but a perfect width for my windows--although there, I went for more drape between the rings than in my new palce. Anyway, even though they were nothing but 100-year-old bedsheets, they looked a hell of a lot better than anything I cold have bought off a rack for a whole bunch of money--that's the beauty of lines: it gets better as it ages--and they were a lot faster to install besides. Regards, Magnaverde. Thus endeth the Lesson.>/i>