Zephyr's Decepticon Vest!

(Published Mar 14, 2021)

My beautiful baby girl got her Decepticon themed Service Dog vest! I've been working on this for a LONG time. My baby in heaven, Maggie, HATED wearing vests because she got hot so easily. After she went to heaven I attempted suicide and... I'll never heal from losing her. I rescued my puppy, Zephyr, who is about to turn 3 years now! Anyway, I wanted Zephyr to have a unique and special vest. Originally I was thinking dragons because, well, I'm a dragon addict. After all, I am The Vegan Dragon! But, you'll be surprised how many dragon themed service dog gear exists... Dammit! But, another thing I love is Decepticons and.... I've never seen a Transformers themed vest. Not until I did it! I had to wait for her to finish growing to see how large the vest could be and therefore what I could do with it. She was abandoned at 6 weeks old, so when I rescued her she was 7 weeks. I had a long time to wait for her to grow, so in that time I just searched for the people who could make my vision happen. While I am an artist myself, I've never made patches or a vest before so wanted people who know how to work a sewing machine to do this! Etsy is such an amazing website and on there I found three women who helped me create my vision. First, the amazing Lauren and her shop Needle Nerd Store (She also runs Pinkbird Originals) made most of the patches you see. She made the "Service Seeker," "Stop Starring at Me," "We are a Team," "Con on Duty," "Vegan," and the mini Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker patches. She made a few other patches for me, some for another use, some because I couldn't decide on an idea! I had so many! But she took what I threw at her, whether I had it drawn on paper, or just spatting out nonesense and demanding she help me jumble these ideas into a coherent sentence. She put up with me for a year (as I have been financially struggling due to losing my 3 eldest daughters, and dealing with a stalker, and being disabled....) because I could only pay for a few things at a time. But she custom made everything at a decent price, and was so patient with me. Give her a Rodimus star! She truly deserves one and needs all your love and support! Another fabulous lady who did a few patches for me, some not on this vest because I was still trying to decide on ideas, was the lady from Henry&Genevieve. Emma was also amazingly patient with me, and despite not knowing about Transformers helped me a lot. Her patches on this vest are the "PTSD Service Dog" ones. I have a few others from her I'll use on another project, but she is also great, and skilled, and I still use the treat bag I bought from her in mid 2018! The shoulder patches I got from this person. Took me a year of just working on the patches. I would lay them down and measure them out to see how they would go on the vest, even cut up an innocent towel in the size and shape of the vest that fit Zephyr. I then would lay the patches on it and measure how big a new patch should be to fit on it. I went through so many different versions until I finalized something! The pattern for the straps came from the same pattern on Zephyr's leash and collar, which I got from BuckleDown. I got it from Amazon here. A friend helped me get the pattern onto my computer and made into a repeating pattern. I sent the pattern to Spoonflower, which created the pattern onto a fabric of my choosing. Now, to make the vest! Since 2018 when Zephyr was still growing I knew who I wanted to make the vest as they had good reviews as well as a style I liked. So many people make gear for dogs, especially service dogs, but so many are... Cheap looking or not a style I liked. But Amber from Pup-Cessories Crafts had gear I liked the look of. I had been messaging her a lot to get an idea of what I needed to do to make sure she could get this vest to work, even drew her a sketch of it (did it super fast so it looked awful...), and once I had all the patches, fabric, and design finalized I mailed everything to her (and prayed the mail didn't lose it!). Her wait time is VERY long which did not help my anxiety. So, despite getting it all to her in October, 2020, it wasn't until now mid March of 2021 I FINALLY got my finished vest. A little surprised as the pictures made the straps look like they were make of a thicker material, but so long as Zephyr likes it I'm ok. And I really went all out. I got the metal upgrades and everything! Amber also made the "You Have Been Deceived" patch, as I had a different patch there before, but I replaced it. She made 3 other patches for me which are going onto the saddlebags (will update this when those are done). Some of the other patches that didn't make it onto the main vest are going onto those. All in all this cost me $453.84. For all the patches, vest, etc. The leash that was broken and remade into a traffic leash was $25, then the leash wrap on the pull strap was $26.93. This total includes patches I didn't end up using on the finished vest. They will be used on other projects. Also includes shipping. Etsy is always more expensive because they are individuals making these products, not machines. So, labor is more. I started this project in late 2019, finished early 2021 with the arrival of the vest in the mail. Finally crossed that off on my to-do list! I hope Zephyr loves it. She's still getting use to it, but she's worn a lot of vests before. Light weight ones for protests and of course her safety vest for when she goes on hikes. This one is a little stiffer and heavier so she's a bit confused, but she'll get the hang of it! To follow Zephyr and see more of her work, adventures, attending protests, and beautiful vest, follow her at her Twitter, LandsharkZephyr! (Had to sadly take down her Twitter account as my stalker was harassing it, impersonating my dog (yes, you read that right), and using my dog to send threatening messages to people to try and make it seem like I was a monster.) To follow me and my work, visit my website: The Vegan Dragon, or to follow my rants about Transformers, follow this blog's Twitter (where you'll be notified of new blog posts and art updates) at Robotic Dragon. Here is the final product on the Decepticon pupper! (WIPs at bottom) (The cast on her paw is from a hiking accident. She was running and hit her paw against a rock at the wrong angle... Cut all the skin off her large paw pad. More info on her Twitter about that!)

And the WIPS, my sketches, the mockup Amber made, and her working on it: