{"id":15592,"date":"2025-02-25T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T09:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=15592"},"modified":"2025-02-24T20:56:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T20:56:23","slug":"working-on-the-brockis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/02\/25\/working-on-the-brockis\/","title":{"rendered":"Working on the Brockis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You may or may not be able to see that there&#8217;s a drop-shadow effect in these photos &#8211; I learned from the mistake of the hawk, as I mentioned, and mounted the green gauze on a frame before I started. I rather like the result when I set it down for photography, and it gives you a much better sense of the view I got as I stitched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock3_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"687\" data-id=\"15573\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock3_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"Second stage of the badger, brownish grey stitching added to the cream\" class=\"wp-image-15573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock3_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock3_Watermarked-300x258.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock3_Watermarked-768x660.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock4_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"615\" data-id=\"15572\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock4_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"Thid stage with some extra dark details including the nose\" class=\"wp-image-15572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock4_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock4_Watermarked-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock4_Watermarked-768x590.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock6_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"623\" data-id=\"15570\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock6_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"Fourth stage of the badger with many more layers of stitching\" class=\"wp-image-15570\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock6_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock6_Watermarked-300x234.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Brock6_Watermarked-768x598.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ordinarily, I would be very concerned about working on gauze &#8211; the hawk is virtually satin stitch to ensure there&#8217;s nothing grinning through the gaps &#8211; but I have a feeling that this is going to evolve as I work on it. Regular readers will know by now that if I&#8217;ve convinced myself that something is necessary for the effect I want to achieve, I grit my teeth and do it, even if I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll enjoy it &#8211; although by the alchemy of Achieving What I Aimed For, it&#8217;s amazing how often I do in fact enjoy it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My brockis is going to be peering out at the main scene from behind a tree, so he&#8217;s going to be on the ground, in amongst the undergrowth, and probably backed by darkish fabric and stitch. That being the case, gaps in the stitching might in fact enhance the sense of depth in the whole assembly. I want him to have rather rough fur, so he&#8217;s not going to be satin stitch, is he?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/BrockDone_Watermarked.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"665\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/BrockDone_Watermarked.jpg\" alt=\"Finished Brockis, squinting out at the viewer\" class=\"wp-image-15569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/BrockDone_Watermarked.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/BrockDone_Watermarked-300x249.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/BrockDone_Watermarked-768x638.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>So my brockis is made, again, purely freehand, referring to the photo for guidance, but simply in layers of stitching. I&#8217;ve used silk, cotton, and linen threads, and a tangle of Vandyke stitch, Cretan Stitch, feather stitch and alternating twisted chain stitch. The silk came from the same stash as the silk I used for the hawk, the linen is a Stef Francis yarn I bought for the Dreams of Amarna that never quite worked in any of the projects, and the cotton is ordinary stranded cotton, but only single strands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m rather pleased with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may or may not be able to see that there&#8217;s a drop-shadow effect in these photos &#8211; I learned from the mistake of the hawk, as I mentioned, and mounted the green gauze on a frame before I started. I rather like the result when I set it down for photography, and it gives&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/02\/25\/working-on-the-brockis\/\">Continue Reading Working on the Brockis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[306,302,25,300,26,114],"class_list":["post-15592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animal-vignettes","tag-brockis","tag-experiments","tag-placidus","tag-silk-thread","tag-vision-of-placidus","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15592"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15608,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15592\/revisions\/15608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}