Almost 2 years ago we beamed up on talk2myShirt the plan of Studio 5050 to created a set of wearable electronic modules that allow designers and DIY enthusiasts to concentrate on the design rather than spending time of putting together the electronics in a textile friendly way.

The waiting time for theses modules is over. Despina Papadopoulos, founder of Studio 5050 and Zach Eveland, president of Blacklabel Development, officially launched the ‘fabrickit‘, a collection of wearable electronic modules or ‘bricks’, at World Maker Fair in New York last weekend.

The first modules available include a removable, rechargeable Coin Cell Battery Brick, x-LED Brick with built-in resistor and a Snap Connector Brick which makes connections fast and easy.

As you might imagine, the ‘fabrickit’ collection will be expanded over time adding the most common function one needs for a wearable electronic project.

Great attention has been given not only to the functionality design but also the appliance of the ‘fabrickit’ modules which look so good I can imagine using them as design element rather than to hide them away underneath layers of fabrics.

‘Fabrickit’ design files are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Check out the ‘fabrickit’ library and pick up your first modules bricks at the ‘fabrickit’ store.

Riccardo Marchesi started around a year ago the online shop Plug and Wear to provide the eTextile community with a one-stop-shop offering eTextile designer a large selection of materials for wearable electronic projects.

The relative new area of wearable electronic with it’s specific eTextile components does not yet have a structure of well established resources, online and offline, such as electronics, knitting, sewing or textiles offer to the DIY community.

Over the past 12 month Riccardo not only managed to get a good selection of components into the Plug and Wear shop, he added sections offering very interesting Tutorials to demonstrate and inspire people who plan to design eTextile projects.

The Tutorials from Riccardo offer simple to follow step by step instructions documented with many photos and a detailed explanation about the underlying theory providing a solid background knowledge of eTextile components and materials. Equipped with these information one can build own projects rather than simply replicate the introduced example.

Point in case: the recently added Soft Potentiometer tutorial with a guide to build an analog input component using a metal ring and knitted, conductive ribbon. Sliding up or down the ribbon length can be used to control the light intensity of a connected LED, volume adjustment for an Audio player and similar, variable input requiring designs.

The Soft Potentiometer is available at Plug and Wear as Kit including the knitted conductive ribbon and the metal ring.

A interesting variant for a soft, textile based interface for wearable electronic designs.

Flex sensors are a often used elements in eTextile projects as they give indication of movement or pressure events in interactive wearable electronic objects.

Plusea has made a large range of stretch and pressure sensors using neoprene and conductive yarn as the key elements.

Instructable member jiovine made a Bi-Directional Flex Sensor using copper foil laminate like it is used in the electronics industry and heat shrink tubing as enclosure.

Placing two copper clad foils face to face with a resistive layer cut from a black plastic poly bag in which usually sensitive electronic components are stored in between and the sensor is ready to use.

Component storing plastic bags are made of carbon-loaded polyethylene – so don’t throw away these bags next time you order some components.

The sweet thing of self-made flexible bend and force sensors is you can make them quickly in any size and shape.

This particular DIY Flex sensor comes from the robotic area but it will be very useful for wearable electronic projects as well. Maybe you have easier access to one or the other set of materials needed for a flex sensor or maybe this copper foil based ‘plastic’ or the textile based flex sensor fit better in a project you are working on.

Robotics and wearable electronic have an overlapping area of interest as robotics is using soft, flexible and electrified elements that suit wearable electronic as well.

Instructables member markaleung made one of those sensible wearable electronic concepts I love for their simplicity and sensibility in regard to the functionality offered: the Weight sensing Tote Bag.

Knowing the weight of a bag, especially when flying somewhere can be a question of how much money we have to shell out when in front of the check-in counter.

This DIY weight sensing bag might not be extremely accurate nor will it be the most critical part of a plane trip but knowing the weight that presses on your shoulder all day long should concern you to avoid health problems in the years ahead.

To get a ‘feeling’ of your bags weight a force sensitive resistor in the shoulder strap measures how hard the strap is pressing on the shoulder. The pressure value is then used to control how fast LEDs pulsate or how many LEDs will be lit up to indicate preset weight values.

No worry you don’t have to go around with blinking light from your bag, the system is designed to light up only when a button is pressed to give off a light code telling the approximate weight. Very smart and sensible design.

The heavy, sensible lifting in form of converting the pressure sensor data into light effects is done by a LilyPad which is powered by one AAA battery.The provided Arduino code is calibrated at approximately 10-11 pounds but can be modified to your specific needs.

Click over to the very detailed DIY instructions including the LilyPad Arduino source code to give you a quick start.

The fabulous eTextile DIY site ‘How to get what you want‘ from  Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson keeps on adding frequently new material for every eTextile enthusiast to learn and to get inspired.

I love the recently posted embroidered potentiometers as they show nicely how to integrate technical parts such as conductive lines which can either be hidden in a garment design or used as style element.

Using the electrical conductive traces as style elements when possible makes not only a good look but it also indicates visually there is something special, something interesting on that dress or jacket.

Why spending money and effort to integrate something unique and then put much effort in hiding it?

Mika and Hannah demonstrate by using the zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine how to create a potentiometer, a variable resistor the allows to detect the position of electrically conductive materials like metal along the conductive ornament.

Check out ‘How to get what you want‘ frequently as you will always find something new and surprising, a treasure chest for eTextile fans.

Getting conductive yarn in small quantities is sometimes difficult as manufacturer usually think big and are not set up in their logistics to serve individual customers with small quantities.

Hannah Perner-Wilson over at ‘How to get what you want‘ is able to make a deal with one of these big manufacturers – Schoeller – and negotiated with them the mini-mini oder which still runs at 30 kilogram which is a lot of yarn for one person.

Hannah now is looking around the eTextile community to see if there is enough interest from people to reach a combined 30 kg mini order quantity. She or anyone interested to take over the distribution of that yarn is invited to express interest via this Google Spreadsheet form.

Please check out the details about the different yarns available and the costs on ‘How to get what you want‘ Website.

These yarns are suitable for the knitting and crocheting of pressure and stretch sensors. Examples of such sensors can be found on ‘How to get what you want‘.

The countless variations of textile/knit/crochet sensors Hannah Perner-Wilson aka Plusea created provide a valuable toolbox and source of inspiration for the eTextile community.

Her recent focus on pressure and stretch/bend sensors made by knitting and crocheting offer a unique alternative to conductive stretch fabric sensors.

Although it is sometimes challenging to find conductive yarn and wool in smaller quantities for DIY projects it is easier than finding stretchable conductive fabric for the use as bend/pressure sensor in eTextile projects.

Another advantage of knitting or crocheting is the form/shape freedom one has. Any shape imaginable can be knitted or crocheted or made of a combination of both.

Rather then pointing out one of the many recent DIY knitted and crocheted sensor projects Hannah made, I suggest to click over to ‘How to get what you want’ and browse through the sensor section for inspiration.

Kobakant, the joined DIY Wearable Technology Documentation project from Hannah Perner-Wilson and Mika Satomi keeps adding interesting must-read information for anyone interested into eTextile technology and design.

It’s one of my habits to check out this site on a regular basis (it’s easy via a news reader) to make sure I do not miss any of their interesting, little projects demonstrating how easy it is do add a bit of technology to old fashion sewing, weaving, knitting or crocheting.

Two of the little project couched my imagination, one is the ‘Star Light‘ using a Bow switch, similar to the one we posted about earlier.

Stitch one or two lines with conductive thread along a ribbon you want to use as bow switch, drape it around a shape, in this example a star with a Lilipad sewable LED, connect to a battery and tied the ribbon to switch on the star light.

The other inspiring example is the ‘Stretch sensitive bracelet‘, knit from conductive thread, resistive yarn and regular yarn, a Lilipad sewable LED and a battery.

When the bracelet is in the none stretched state the LED will be off, when stretched it will light up.

Knitting is a fairly easy process and can be done anyplace. Using conductive yarn makes knitting a perfect platform to create stretch sensors in any shape and size.

The stretch sensitive bracelet concept could be used for a knitted hat, making a LED light up when wearing it, cute for small kids or for increased visibility for grown-ups while jogging after sunset.

The nice thing: when the hat is taken off, the light is switched off by magic a knitted textile sensor – cute.

It is always enjoyable to write about the amazing inventions from Aniomagic, the magical eTextile wizards who create cute, simple components and projects with eTextiles.

The latest additions to their e-textile treasure chest is the smart dock connector for iPhone and iPod.

The Aniomagic dock connector is an easy to do e-textile project which adds a unique remote control to every iPod and iPhone with a dock connector. It not only looks cute, it represents an alternative, next to the special iPod gloves, to control the Apple ‘i’ products during the cold winter season when many wear gloves which makes it impossible to operate those products without taking the gloves off.

The magic dock can control the functions: ‘Play/Pause’ with a single click, ‘Next/Previous Track’ with a double click, ‘Next/Previous Album’ via a triple click and ‘Volume Up/Down’ by pressing and hold the button.

A tiny chip on the smart dock connector monitors the resistance between the two sewable holes. If the resistance is less than 1kΩ it will activate ‘forward/volume up’ and if the resistance is around 50kΩ means ‘backward/volume down’.

This smart dock connector can be used with actual resistors, conductive fabrics, tilt sensors or other types of sensors. The chip speaks the ‘Apple Accessory Protocol’ which allows it to communicate with iPods and iPhones over the dock connection.

The magic dock connector can control the following functions: ‘Play/Pause’ with a single click, ‘Next/Previous Track’ with a double click, ‘Next/Previous Album’ via a triple click and ‘Volume Up/Down’ by pressing and hold the button.

The remote control kit is available for just $20.- and contains everything you need: magic dock connector, conductive yarn, conductive fabric and conductive thread. There are only a few steps to make your own, textile remote control: Cut the conductive materials to size, sandwich the pieces and sew together and attach them to dock with conductive yarn. The complete assembly instruction can be found here.

If you are not a ‘Hello Kitty’ fan you are free to design your own style with the DIY-Kit, as accessory like in this example or integrated into your favorite jacket or bag … only your imagination is the limit to a cool looking cold weather remote control for this winter season.

The team at ‘How to Get What You Want‘ published recently eTextile sensors (pressure and tilt sensor) which a made of conductive wool using the Crochet technique to build electrically conductive traces and patches into Crochet work.

Besides weaving and knitting, crochet is a excellent way to incorporate electrically conductive elements into fabrics totally seamless, making eTextile integration ‘invisible’.

For all the less experienced needle craft people among our readers: Crochet comes from the French word croq, which means hook and is a method of making fabric from yarn or thread, very much similar to knitting.  Crochet makes use of a crochet hook, while knitters use knitting needles. It is fairly easy to learn, just look around the Internet which is full of Crochet DIY learning sites.

The technique of crochet, once mastered, provides unlimited possibilities to integrate eTextile technology into various types of clothing, fashion accessories or home decoration items.

Syuzi over at Fashioning Technology posted an article showing what one can create by kitting and crocheting with conductive wool and yarn.

Looking back to all the DIY eTextile techniques we have seen, starting from hand and machine sewing, embroidery, (laser) cutting and laminating of traces of conductive fabric, weaving, knitting and crochet, eTextile crafting took over most of the traditional needle craft techniques.