Destination Gotland – let’s go explore!

Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man.
Edward Steichen

Two days after sending out all the postcard swap-addresses via e-mail, I took off for the annual long weekend of craft workshops at the island of Gotland. It’s has become a great tradition as this year marks our fourth trip. Every time I go I feel privileged to be invited to do craft workshops and hang out with these amazing people I get to call my friends. I don’t know if I deserve it, but I sure appreciate and enjoy it.

I love the nature in Gotland, especially in late spring when we get to visit. There are flowers almost everywhere you look, and I feel so close to nature there. We live surrounded by fields and trees, and I’m reminded of how close to big roads and train stations I normally live. This is something very different from my regular life, and as a city girl I wish I could experience nature more often.

I took a few photographs with my Nikon D5200 camera, although not as many as previous years. I’m sharing my favorites in this post…

Sloe flowers.

Detail of an artist Måna Engström barn studio that we got to visited.

New sneakers.

Erika’s knitting.

The first year visiting Gotland I took a lot of photos and later made a photo book about the travels, via Blurb. It’s a great memento to remember the trip by, but for this year I decided to make snippets of video instead, which filled up my memory card quite quickly. I’ll share some of that once I find the time to edit and upload it.

If you follow me on Snapchat (where I’m ihannanu) you got to follow along during the trip, which was fun. The more video I make, the more I fall in love with it as another great memory keeping tool.

I really love the nature in Gotland, and there is a lot to see and do everywhere. I have a place in my heart for Gotland, the ocean and all those little stones and pebbles everywhere on the beach.

But as much as I do love nature, this trips is not about hiking or sitting in the sun. Instead we spent most of the time indoors, crafting and making stuff together, teaching each other fun stuff. And drinking quite a lot of coffee of course, we’re Swedes after all.

I shared some snippets of WIP on instagram (where I’m @ihannas), starting on May 4th with a Star Wars inspired embroidery…

We made little sketchbooks, wool embroidery and made tiny dolls using yarn. We made fun hats, and experimented with shaving gel marbling on fabric (which is super fun).

I knitted a bit, doodled some, and also sewed fabric and sequins to the pages of my tiny sketchbook, and remembered how fun doing embroidery on paper is!

We exchanged gifts made or to craft with, which is always super fun:

Rolls of fabric.

Embroidered balls.

I hope you liked these photos. Have you ever been to this beautiful island, or do you want to visit someday? I’d love to know, or if you’re going exploring somewhere else in the world this summer? I can recommend Gotland for sure.

Feel free to pin this image to your pinterest board on Sweden/traveling or other: