Every once in a while, I like to make homemade lemon-limeade. I thought I’d share my recipe here.

4-6 lemons and limes. I usually use 4 or 5 lemons and 1 lime
1 cup of sugar or to taste
5 cups water

Mix sugar and 1 cup of water in a pan. Heat the water until the sugar dissolves. If you skip this step, you will end up with all your sugar at the bottom of your lemonade. I’ve also had some success with using room temperature water.

Juice your lemons and limes. The juice from 4-6 lemons and limes should equal approximately one cup.

Once the sugar is dissolved in your simple syrup mixture, mix in the lemon/lime juice.

Stir in 4 cups of cold water. Add ice. Enjoy.

If you are so inclined, add gin for my twist on a bitter lemon gin and tonic. Sometimes, I add vodka and mint instead. Both are cool, refreshing, and perfect for summer dinner parties.

I’ve recently finished reading Katherine Shaughnessy’s The New Crewel and I am all ready to jump in doing crewelwork.Crewel is free-form embroidery done using tightly woven cotton or most often linen fabric and wool thread. It uses many of the same stitches as free-form embroidery—stem stitch, chain stitch and split stitch–but gives more of a three-dimensional effect because of the thickness of the wool and the tightness of the fabric.

Crewel embroidery has been around for hundreds of years and has waxed and waned in popularity throughout its history. The last big rise in crewel embroidery popularity was in the 1970s, I certainly remember it from my childhood, but it is again making its resurgence in the Crafting/DIY world. Katherine Shaughnessy is partly responsible for that resurgence with her book, The New Crewel, and her great web site, woolandhoop.com. You will find many of the great patterns from her book, supplies and kits for sale on woolandhoop.com.

Here are some other sites of interest, some of which sell patterns, books and kits.

Crewel Work * A Guide to Crewel Embroidery * Marnie’s Crewel Studio * Makezine

Here are some completed projects featured in The New Crewel to help give you ideas on how to you can crewel embroidery.