Yarn along - rather sheepish

Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!

Sometimes I could spend all day reading blog posts, getting lost in inspiration. I love the deep connection I feel to all you creativ people out there no matter how different we might be, we all know what it feels like when the creativ spark lights our hearts.
And sometimes one thing leads to the other. A few weeks ago I read Irens post about spinning and lent (in German). She also recommended a book, talking about the simplicities in life, perfect for a lent read, and only a few days later I found myself caught in the beautieful, yet simple life of Marie des Brebis, (only available in German and French, sorry!) A strong woman who spent her life as a shepherd in the french hills of the last century. It is a story that brought tears to my eyes and lifted my heart with joy.
I so wish someone would translate it into English for you!

I have always loved sheep and through reading that book I remembered an old diy book my mum had given to me from her stash when Aaron was born. It gives lots of examples on how to create natural toys for kids. I knew it had a pattern on how to knit sheep and thats what I did the last days, one or two sheep every day... so I will have a few for the spring table and some to give away for easter. I tried different yarns but I think I liked the very hard handspun wool best that my mum spun a while ago. Its a very rough. itchy yarn and not very good to use in projects for clothes but for these sheep it is perfect. I have some skeins in brown and in white.
I am thinking about giving away a mum and a baby sheep (and a copie of the pattern if you like) so if you are interested in a little easter package let me know :-) (if more than one of you are interested, I will choose randomly).

As you may remember I spend last sunday morning at the fleamarket and have shown you some of the treasures. I didn't show you one find yet though, my favourite one, because I thought it would fit best to my yarn along post. I found this maschine to spin yarn skeins into balls but I have no idea how to call that thing, neither in English nore in German, so if you do, please let me know! Such a great invention and so much fun. Aaron loves it too... I just wish I had more skeins to spin.

That yarn in the picture is some organic wool and after knitting with my last stash of (bought) handdyed yarn I was deperate to dye my own. I did some research and because I didn't have any ingredientes for a natural dye I used easter egg color as shown in this very great (German) tutorial. My first try in blue and green looked like this and I also did some in purple and pink. And now I want to try many, many different styles to dye yarn. I can't wait to get into that. Have you dyed any yarn yourself before, what is your favorite method?

Happy Knitting!