Protector/Companion – Josh Durham

For my protector/companion project, I created a giraffe-flamingo hybrid.  I gravitated towards the giraffe since giraffes are very quiet, gentle creatures that would be a great companion figure.  I then thought what attributes would help improve the giraffe’s abilities and make them more protective without making them menacing creatures.  I decided to give the giraffe wings so it come to protect someone more quickly without making the giraffe a more aggressive creature.  The giraffe body and head was kept mainly the same, and then the I integrated the legs and wings of a flamingo to create a hybrid creature.

I worked entirely with felt pieces since I wanted the fabric to have more color than just the tan muslin fabric.  The supply I had of each color was limited, so I grouped similar colors together to get the same feel while still having slight variations.  I decided to keep the stitching exposed since most of the prior pieces I made used internal stitching to hide the thread within the seams, and I wanted to showcase the stitching more here since I spent a lot of time stitching all the pieces together by hand.  All of the pieces are held together with blanket stitches, and I varied the thread color so it would match the color of the fabric in that part of the piece.

I really enjoyed working through the process of designing the pattern and working on piecing the different forms together.  The main giraffe pattern had the entire body side integrated into the legs, so I had to cut and modify the pattern precisely and resize the flamingo leg patterns to make them fit with the giraffe body.  I also learned a lot about hand stitching and how tedious it can be to add hundred of stitches to hold the whole piece together, but it also makes me more proud of the piece since I know how much time has to go into making hand stitched forms.