Vest Life is the Best Life! A Kutte Above!

My buddy Sean gets it. Vest life is the best life, so I thought I would give you a little tour and tips of my own vests!

Battle Jacket

This is my battle jacket that I wear to punk/metal shows, and is my typical daily wear vest when I am feeling froggish. Its my oldest current vest that is still intact, though to be clear it is not my first ever vest. My original was leather, before I realized what a poor choice that was for life in the deep south. I started my original kutte in 2010ish I think, maybe a little earlier.

Here is the front. Notable patches: - My Eagle Scout rank patch. - An American flag patch that came off my dads work coveralls - A dream catcher given to me by a hitchiker I gave a lift to. - RIP patch, my dad nickname in the oil fields, cut off his coveralls. - Hilltop Howler Patch, the patch of my non-profit I run. - Band patches: Kadavar, Dimmu Borgir, Mastodon, Lustravi, Wolves of Chernobyl, Giger, Type O Negative, Down, Dark Star Coven, Accursed Creator, The Living Deads, Baroness. All seen live of course. - Couple of chili patches, because of my favorite pun. - Rose patch as a call back to a rose that grew up through my porch. - Spam patch, because spam is best! - Resist patch made by a friend. - Suicide Squeeze patch given to me by a friend. - Irish patch, cause heritage. - Heaven Hill patch, because I used to be known for drinking a staggering amount of bottom shelf heaven hill.

Here is the back. Notable patches: - Get Fucked patch, which was great to ask my very religious mother in law to sew on for me. - Tales by Bob back patch took the place of my old club patch. - Band patches: Ruby the Hatchet, Danzig, Christworm, Tyler Childers, Red Fang. - Cthulhu patch, made by a friend. - Skull and pen/pencil patch, made by a friend. - Boone's farm patch, gifted to me because I learned to drink on Boones. - Wilderness patch given by a friend who knows about my love of the wilds. - Nurse one given to me by a friend.

Convention Kutte

If you are here, this is likely the vest you have seen me in, because we likely ran into each other at a convention/author event. This is my nerd vest, that I have been building over the past few years. The front is pretty much done, now I just need to slap some more patches on the back. I'm just waiting on gathering a few more good ones before sending it off the M-I-L for sewing.

Here is the front. Fandoms represented are: Cthulhu, Spirited Away, Mothman, Doctor Who, Silence of the Lambs, Blade Runner, Courage the Cowardly Dog, DnD, X-Files, Bucc-ees, The Warriors, Poe, Mandolorians, Jaws, Bobby Nash, Dino, Steampunk, Puns, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Ravenclaw, Fallout, Hamilton, IT, Science, Nightmare before Christmas, Vinyl, Golden Girls, Goosebumps, Podcasting. A few cons are represented on here as well, Dragon Con, CONjuration, Fanticon, and ConCarolinas.

The back, in all its disgusting nakedness. The Tales by Bob patch, just like the one above, I got a friend with a screen printer to make for me. Think of how nice it will look when it's all covered with new fandom patches.

Banners/Proto Vests

I have a few other...fandoms? that I am working on collecting enough items to turn into vests. Until they reach critical mass, I bough these smaller cloth banners with which to hold them. Lets dive in:

The start of my travel vest! Here is a list of the places they represent: - Atlanta - New Zealand - New Orleans - Chatanooga - Portugal (Lisbon) - Las Vegas - Spain (Seville)

Bourbon Trail Vest! For my bachelor party me and the guys hit up a bunch of the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. I bought a patch/button from each place we stopped, or I have visited in the past. One day it will be a vest off all the stops! Here are what I have so far: - Heaven Hill - Four Roses - The Bard (My favorite stop so far) - M. B. Roland - Casey Jones - Dueling Grounds - Old Glory (Technically not part of the trail) - Boundary Oak

Convention Kutte overflow. These are patches/buttons that may end up the main vest, I just haven't done a major overhaul, and haven't gotten enough patches to fill the back yet. You can see: Starlord, Blade Runner, SeaQuest DSV, Hellboy, Hamilton, Van Gogh, and a bunch of Dragon Con.

My latest project: my Mothan Vest! This may well turn into a general cryptid vest at some point, depending on how much mothman stuff I can find. The patches are the biggest hold up, Mothman pins aren't hard to find, but they don't take up much space. So maybe I will end up making this a more general paranormal type vest. We shall see!

Want to make your own vest?

Here are some links to buy the stuff I bought (not patches and such, but the vests and the like).

For the vests, I search Amazon for denim biker vests. I get this one usually, because I like having lacing on the side (because I am a portly lad). You can always swap out the lacing for something of a different color if you like (my eventual Mothman HERE is the link.

For the banners, I bought two packs of THESE. They work great, and roll up small if you aren't using them.

I highly recommend that wherever possible you swap out the backs of your pens with these locking pin-backs, to make sure you don't lose something valuable. HERE is a link. They look like this, in case that link breaks: