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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 8h

#31DaysOfGraves Day 6: Weather. A frosty December day back in the winter of 2023 at the (very) Old Burial Ground, Galashiels. The building on the left is not a church, but Gala Aisle, the family burial vault for the lairds of Gala, built in 1636. #Scotland #cemetery #Galashiels #ScottishHistory

View looking over a snowy old stone wall into a frosty graveyard with old headstones, a small church-like building and a big tree. In the background are more trees and some hills.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Wooow! Those details are just amazing, hard to believe it's stone 🤯

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

What a rare treat! I’ve only ever seen them as a brief flash of turquoise as they zip past me at the riverside.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Alt text: A curved stone entryway with a bell at the top & decorative iron gates. Sign reads: “Site of the Kirk of the Forest where William Wallace was proclaimed Guardian of Scotland. In the Murray Aisle of present building lie the maternal ancestors of Franklin D Roosevelt, 32nd US President.”

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

#31DaysOfGraves Day 4. Entrance at the Auld Kirk Yard (Scots for “old church yard”) in #Selkirk. If you wander through, there are some very *fancy* headstones within the ruins! Also said to be the site of the Kirk o’ the Forest, where William Wallace was proclaimed Guardian of Scotland in 1298. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Well she sounds like a proper dickhead. Good on you for ignoring them! 🪁

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Following on from my earlier post, this is a photograph of Gala Aisle itself - or at least the windows, which presumably once had glass in them, a long time ago. #31DaysOfGraves Day 3 - Glass. #ShotOnCanon

Photo of an elongated window with curved points at the top, reminiscent of a church. It has old stonework and has no glass, just a metal mesh (presumably to prevent birds entering). Through the window you can see a leafy green tree and the graveyard boundary wall beyond.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Day 2 of #31DaysOfGraves - Urn. Taken on a walk this evening around the Old Burial Ground, #Galashiels, in the south of Scotland. The #graveyard has headstones dating back to the 1600s + includes Gala Aisle, the family burial vault for the Lairds of Gala, built in 1636. #3rdPlace #BlueskyArtShow

A carved stone urn sits atop a large, weathered headstone in an old graveyard at dusk.

The inscription reads: "Sacred to the memory of Eliza Anne Cochrane, wife of Henry Roberts, Manufacturer, Galashiels. Born 12th August 1834. Died 30th March 1863.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Evening sunlight at the Eastlands #Cemetery in #Galashiels. 🥀🪦 Just spotted #31DaysOfGraves & this feels fitting for day one's prompt, flower. I also quite like graveyard walks, so I herby submit it as a #3rdPlace for this week's #BlueskyArtShow. 📷 April 2025, Galashiels, Scotland. #ShotOnCanon

Evening sunshine warms a beautiful carved gravestone adorned with flowers in the Eastlands Cemetery in Galashiels, a town in the Scottish Borders.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

'Tis Bandcamp Friday!! 💜 Today is a great day to support your fave musicians! 🎸🎵🥁

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Not by choice, I'm sure! I understand the higher education is facing a lot of financial challenges currently. I would not be surprised if a lot of it is due to the unfortunate impacts of Brexit on research funding and barriers to EU students coming to Scotland/UK to study.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

What a beautiful, tranquil place. I felt my blood pressure drop just watching that.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

may I also say: Guitar Anarchy would be an excellent name for a punk band! 🎸🎸🎸

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

having just read the title, "Nowhere Man" by The Beatles started playing in my head 😅

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

P.S. As a Scot, I definitely felt I had an advantage when I started to learn Flemish/Dutch!

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

To be honest, “coo” isn’t even particularly rural Scots - it’s pretty common around the country! 🐄 A funny thing people sometimes say in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 if you ask how they like their cup of tea: “two and a coo” - meaning “two sugars and some milk” 😄

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Today is National Poetry Day! This poem, Ideas Coalesce, came to me fairly spontaneously earlier this year, one January evening when I couldn't sleep. #NationalPoetryDay #Poem #Poetry #MentalHealth

Poem text. Title: Ideas Coalesce.

Sewing, threads
Gathering my skills
Working with my hands, expressing Embroidering what’s in my heart
Pulling at the inkling of an idea
Stitching disparate parts together
To create a coherent whole
Coming back to myself
Darning the care-worn places
In need of a little love
Untangling the knotted mess
That somehow bound me for a while.

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Reposted by Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️

James @retrojames.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It takes BBC 2 to make a thing go right... Remember these idents? You just might. Just a little something from me 2 you:

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Well, I could believe it was an Irish Catholic thing, yeah - maybe even certain Catholic Scots too. I always think of people praying to St Anthony when they've lost stuff 😆

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Interesting to see how it might have looked! I've visited the ruins at Dryburgh and they're pretty impressive in themselves.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I found the whole thing pretty odd, especially as I had some friends at my school who were Buddhist and I wondered what they made of it all! 😅

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I expected the bar to be low for frat boys, but what they did is absolutely despicable.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I’m now having flashbacks to sixth year at my high school when I’d finally had enough of the religious b*llocks & stubbornly refused to sing any hymns in protest, mainly because I was pretty much an atheist at that point! (Thankfully outside of school I didn’t have any kind of religion forced on me)

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Some thoughts on Edinburgh College of Art's decision to ditch teaching of craft-based disciplines at undergrad level. As a textiles graduate myself, it's so incredibly sad to see an org like them choose to do this when they could be championing these skills. catmcl.substack.com/p/creative-e...

catmcl.substack.com

Creative Exodus

Craft skills are under serious threat - we need to act now before we lose them entirely.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

These #lights were so cool - I liked how the colours kept changing, it was quite a dreamy/trippy effect! #BlueskyArtShow

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I studied screen printing at uni. 😎 It's a lot of fun - hope you enjoy the workshop!

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I think you can just add a comment under the post with the adjusted hashtag (like I did), and it should pull through to the feed.

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I think the hashtag this week is actually #lights, but I love the pics! 🐼🛕🐧

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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️ @knittedpixel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

One of the pretty Dutch canals at dusk, from one of my many visits to Amsterdam to visit my sister. #BlueskyArtShow #lights

View of an Amsterdam canal at dusk, with houseboats and pretty, old-fashioned street lights gently illuminating the scene.

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