Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️
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Cat McLaughlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️
@knittedpixel.bsky.social
390 followers 620 following 930 posts
Designer, creator & dreamer. Insatiably curious human being. Typography obsessed. Things I 💜: music, exploring creativity, photography, books, culture & art.

From/living in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 but love to travel.

I sometimes write stuff here: https://catmcl.substack.com/
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Happy Winter Solstice, Bluesky friends! ❄️ Always glad to reach this day in the calendar, and welcome the return of the light.

This photo is from December 2022, when the Eildon Hills were looking pretty with their dusting of snow.

#WinterSolstice #ScottishBorders #Landscape #Scotland #Snow
Photograph of a winter scene depicting the Eildon Hills in the Scottish Borders, and the snowy landscape around them. Soft winter sunshine illuminates and there are wispy clouds in the sky above. Photo taken in December 2022 by Cat McLaughlin.
December 21, 2025 at 1:30 PM
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It’s #OpenHouse for #BlueskyArtShow, so here are an assortment of rather charming wee birdhouses I spotted in Amsterdam this week while visiting my sister! 🪶
A tree trunk is decorated with cheerful, colourful bird houses in a wide range of styles and colours. In the background are houseboats on an Amsterdam canal and a row of traditional Dutch townhouses.
December 20, 2025 at 10:37 PM
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It’s #OpenHouse on #BlueskyArtShow this week! I usually share my photography here, but today I wanted to share my mixed media artwork. It’s a piece that’s a hybrid of analogue & digital art: my hand-drawn illustrations, hand-lettering and digital collage elements.

#GraphicDesign #MixedMediaArt
Layered mixed media art piece created by Cat McLaughlin with hand drawn roses, an anatomical heart and the word “Love” illustrated in gothic blackletter type.
December 20, 2025 at 9:31 PM
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What’s life without colour? DULL! Please enjoy these fabulous tulips at Keukenhof in the Netherlands for #TulipTuesday. 🌷

Photo taken during a visit to the floral haven with my mum in spring 2015 - the displays are just glorious.

#BloomScrolling
Swathes of vibrant tulips in a springtime display at the Keukenhof gardens in the Netherlands. A confetti of floral colour ripples like waves through a woodland setting.
December 9, 2025 at 9:50 PM
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Another pretty #sky for this week’s #BlueskyArtShow - throwback to Paris, August 2013. 🇫🇷

The huge Tyrannosaurus Rex was perched at one of the Bateaux Mouches stations on the River Seine. I always love the beautiful quality of the light in Paris whenever I visit the city. (Je reviendrai encore!)
Jurassic Paris: golden hour light illuminates Paris, the City of Light. A gilded metal T-Rex skeleton sculpture looks as though it is heading towards the Eiffel Tower. Philippe Pasqua is the name of the artist who created the aluminium & chrome dinosaur sculpture.
December 6, 2025 at 6:03 PM
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This week’s #BlueskyArtShow theme is #sky so here’s the sky above Loch Morlich & the Cairngorm Mountains, in the Scottish Highlands. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I’ve spent a lot of time in that part of Scotland and love it dearly - it’s so beautiful.

📷 Photo taken by me in April 2022.

#Scotland #Ecosse #Alba #Cairngorms
View of Loch Morlich in the Scottish Highlands, with the snow-dusted Cairngorm mountain range in the background, and dramatically-lit clouds in the sky above. You can see a sandy beach and some trees at the edge of the loch and lots of small waves rippling the surface of the water.
December 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM
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Happy St. Andrew’s Day, folks! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
November 30, 2025 at 8:17 PM
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A little late-night #BloomScrolling for you, my Bluesky friends. These fuchsias always remind me of tiny dancing ballerinas. 🩰
Close-up photo of some dainty fuchsias in full bloom. The inner part of the flowers are a deep purple colour, with a vibrant pink “skirt” and stamen.
November 19, 2025 at 11:17 PM
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It’s a beautiful city, I definitely miss living there! 🏰 I did a little day trip by train today though which was nice 😊
Autumnal scene with horse chestnut trees, carpeted with leaves. The tree in the foreground has a twisted trunk and is still clinging on to a few of its yellow-tinted leaves. In the background are Georgian era buildings typical of the New Town in Edinburgh.
November 17, 2025 at 12:22 AM
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Time spent with trees is never time wasted. Today I felt the magnetic pull of some lovely twisty-trunked horse chestnut trees. 🌰

#LoveNature #Trees #Edinburgh
Black-and-white photo of some trees in a small park, with rows of Georgian buildings and parked cars in the background. The central tree is a horse chestnut, with a twisted trunk, and it has lost most of its leaves. The ground is carpeted with crispy leaves and on the left are some large boulders fashioning a rough circle of stones, potentially for sitting on.
November 16, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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I wrote this as a form of letter to myself, but it came out more like poetry (no bad thing!). As it’s World Kindness Day today, I thought I’d share it, in case someone else finds it useful/helpful too. 🧡

#ViralKindness #BeKind #Writing
Handwritten words in black fineliner on a page with a painted blue background. Text reads: “A permission slip. It’s ok to make mistakes. It’s ok to take a break. It’s ok to not know the answer. It’s ok to need support. It’s ok to ask for help. It’s ok to be different. It’s ok to have unfinished tasks. It’s ok to need quiet time. It’s ok to reinforce boundaries. It’s ok to show up imperfectly. It’s ok to prioritise rest. It’s ok to put myself first. It’s ok if the letters get smudged. It’s ok if things aren’t perfect. It’s ok to take the easy option, at least some of the time. It’s ok to feel sad, and to cry. Most of all, it’s ok to be imperfectly human and to just be myself.”
November 13, 2025 at 8:27 PM
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A rare self-portrait for #MonochromeMonday. Wishing you all a good week, folks.
Black & white photo of Cat, a white Scottish woman in her early 40s. She has long hair and is wearing a black t-shirt with an old ship printed on it.
November 10, 2025 at 10:04 PM
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Another #evening photo for this week’s #BlueskyArtShow! 🌷
A bunch of purple tulips is dramatically lit with warm evening light, possibly candle light or the glow of a fireplace.
November 8, 2025 at 9:58 PM
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#BlueSkyArtShow theme today is #Evening - here’s a photo from a lovely evening, taken in Cherokee on my family trip to North Carolina, USA, in June this year. A special place for sure. 🧡
A leafy green tree with lichen on its trunk, green shrubbery and a winding path made of loose pebble stones form a garden in front of a two-storey row motel rooms with red doors. The scene is gently illuminated with the warm glow of lightbulbs, giving the effect of large fairy lights overhead.
November 8, 2025 at 4:43 PM
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Somehow… it’s November, apparently?! Joining in the #DavidsMonthOfMusic malarkey once again.

Day 1: Eels - “Fresh Blood” 🩸

music.apple.com/gb/album/fre...
I thought we could try something different this month... Connections! Day 1, pick a song. Any song. Day 2, pick a song that is connected in some way to the previous day and each day just keep finding links to the song from the day before. You can be as basic or as nerdy as you like! A few ideas for links: Written by the same person. Toured together. Guest artist. On the same soundtrack album. Same producer. A cover version of the previous/next artist. Songs that have the same name. Or anything glaringly obvious or deliciously obscure as you can find! Hope you enjoy the challenge and look forward to seeing the unexpected places this journey might take you! I'll be back to our scheduled prompts next month. Have fun and be good to each other. Please use the hashtag #DavidsMonthOfMusic
November 1, 2025 at 11:43 PM
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Found my spooky Lego! 🦇
Black and white/sepia photo depicting a Halloween scene: a Bride of Frankenstein-esque Lego minifigure stands in front of a glowing candle and to the side is a rose. The edges have a soft focus and there’s a vignette effect, giving the image a vintage feel.
November 1, 2025 at 10:51 PM
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It’s Bat Appreciation Week, apparently! 🦇 I’m still working on a Halloween sewing project, which just so happens to feature the little critters. I love seeing the tiny Pipistrelle bats flitting about here in the south of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 at dusk, it always brings me so much joy.

#LoveBats #Halloween #Stitchy
Cotton fabric with an all-over print, featuring lots of white bats of varying sizes silhouetted against a black background.
October 29, 2025 at 10:35 PM
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Quiet Sunday means spooky sewing time. 🧵🪡🦇

#Halloween #ShesCrafty #SpookySeason
Flatlay/overhead shot of craft materials laid over a cutting mat. On the left is a purple cotton fabric with a Halloween print, featuring skulls, black cats, a spooky house and cobwebs. On top is laid a bright turquoise triangle of felt. Left-handed fabric scissors sit next to a ribbon of burgundy-coloured bias binding.
October 26, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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The view from #inside the Leith tenement building I used to reside in.

#BlueskyArtShow #Spiral #Architecture #Tenement #Edinburgh
View looking up a partially spiral staircase (inside an Edinburgh tenement building) towards the skylight above. The natural light is almost theatrical in the way it reflects off the ornate ironwork railings and varnished wooden banister in the dark stairwell, creating a sense of drama and movement.
October 25, 2025 at 2:18 PM
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A view #inside the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. The Victorian-era building’s design was inspired by the Crystal Palace in London.

#BlueSkyArtShow #Edinburgh #Architecture #Scotland #Museum
Black & white photo depicting an interior view of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh’s Chambers Street. The Victorian architecture is grand, like a giant glasshouse with sweeping arches, its design inspired by the Crystal Palace in London. There are visitors of all ages wandering around, examining the museum’s many & varied artefacts.
October 25, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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Took my camera for a walk to see the pretty autumn colours around Galashiels yesterday. 🍁
View looking up through fiery red acer leaves illuminated in the sunlight. Cute cottage nestled in greenery, with a little white garden gate and cheery flower boxes along the wall. View of the Eildon Hills from above the town of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, framed by trees tinged with autumnal colour.
October 19, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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The #BlueSkyArtShow theme this week is #Vertical so please enjoy these roses reaching up into a beautiful blue sky. 🌹
Pink roses in flower against a bright blue sky. Pink roses in flower reaching across a bright blue sky A rose bush in bloom with delicate pink roses in flower against a bright blue sky, their petals illuminated by the sun.
October 18, 2025 at 10:56 AM
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The #BlueskyArtShow theme this week is #Glow 🍁 so here’s a lovely autumnal oak tree.
An oak tree is silhouetted against the evening sun, and its leaves are illuminated, showing off their vibrant autumnal colours.
October 11, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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The #BlueskyArtShow theme this week is #Glow 🔥

Haven’t dyed my hair this colour for quite a while but love how it caught the golden hour light in this photo.
My long red hair glowing in the golden hour light, with my reflection just seen in the window behind.
October 11, 2025 at 5:43 PM
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The theme is #Relax for this week’s #BlueSkyArtShow.

I often find spending time in the garden helps me relax. The scent of lavender is very soothing too, and I enjoy watching the bees buzzing around their purple flowers.

#BloomScrolling #Lavender #SimplePleasures
Macro shot of a stem of a lavender plant with its flowers still in bud. In the background are more green stems and some pink flowers dotted around. Closeup of some lavender in flower against a sky blanketed with white cloud, with a green lawn and trees in the background.
October 4, 2025 at 2:06 PM