Early in the year 2002 I was contacted by a member of a motorcycle group wanting to know if I could make patches for the backs of their vests from artwork they provided. The image they sent really intrigued me and I wondered if I could do justice to their photo-realistic gorilla. After a lot of thought I decided that I'd give it a try and see what would happen.

Inspiration must have bonked me on the head because the result ended up being accepted by the club and I made patches for all the members.

A few months later one of the trade magazines was having an annual competition for embroiderers to submit their work for judging. It seemed like a good idea to use the club logo as an entry but it had to be stitched on a finished garment in order to qualify. I bought a vest and set to work ... but couldn't leave well enough alone. I simply had to fancy it up a little. After shopping in the junk drawer I found enough doodads to add my own weird decorations for a one-of-a-kind look. If you'll look closely, you'll see copper tubing, washers, nuts, fishing equipment, cotter keys, and chrome chain all fastened to my poor customer's vest. He had no idea what I had done to it. :-)

The end result was that we tied for second place in the jacketback category and his wife ended up actually wearing the vest. Certainly, there will be no others on the road quite like this strange assortment of hardware.

Thanks, Bob, for allowing me to have my fun.
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