Good news for the DIY wearable electronic community: the Soft Circuit Contest by Instructables has extended it’s submission deadline giving you another week to post your textile project.

Don’t miss the opportunity to win a LilyPad Micro-controller Programmer Pro kit, a Salt n’ Peanut soft circuit kit from Soft-Circuit.com and an Instructables prize pack including an Instructables T-Shirt and a one year pro membership.

So far a few creative entries have been made like the Light-up Leggings submitted by Instructables member Carleyy.

Given the clear instructions to follow, the Light Up Leggings is a cute, relatively simple project that adds some sparkle to leggings but Carleyy’s sparkle design can be used to light up jeans or jackets alike.

A techno touch to your wardrobe for the darker time of the year ahead and a good opportunity to get a first introduction into soft circuit design.

Check out this and other soft circuit designs to get inspired and submit your eTextile project to Instructables until Oct 10th, the extended submission deadline and you might get a well deserved reward for it.

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.

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.

Riccardo posted on his blog on our newly launched talk2myShirt Connection an amazing on/off switch concept for eTextile projects: the ON_OFF Switch Bow.

I love this unique idea of translating a mechanical switch to eTextile electronics. Tie a bow like a shoelace and the switch is ‘ON’. Untie the bow and the switch is in ‘OFF’ stage.

The trick behind this bow switch is the use of pressure sensitive eTextile fabric like Riccardo is offering on his online store. When the fabric ribbon is loose, there is no electrical contact on the connection points.

If pressure is applied to the fabric like when the ribbon is tied to a bow, the pressure sensitive eTextile lets the current flow and closes the electrical circuit.

This is a brilliantly simple but very cute textile switch concept for eTextile projects which I am sure some of you will pick up for your next design.

Aniomagic recently introduced the Magic Dock connector for iPod and iPhone control which offers a unique way to integrate remote control functions or the ‘i’ products into all kind of soft, textile based products.

To show off the potential of this Magic Dock connector and to inspire the eTextile community, Aniomagic made another little project around this connector, integrating textile based control buttons into the handle of a Baby Bag.

The materials required are as simple as the dock connector use, conductive thread, conductive fabric patches and the magic dock connector.

How to hack a bag is shown on Aniomagic’s project site.

I like on this little project the way an iPod/iPhone control is integrated in a bag differently compared to the almost standard configuration of 5 or six buttons in a row or circle.

Yes, with these standard designs more control functions are possible but in terms of simplicity and freedom of style/design, the magic dock connector from Aniamagic leaves plenty of room for design creativity.

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.

A short update on the ‘My Sew EZ Touch kit‘ we have posted about a few days ago: the kit from RNK Distributing comes complete with a standard 6-button PANiQ Wearable User Interface and a PANiQ Controller for iPod and is available now via the PANiQ online shop for $79.99

Full instructions and embroidery designs are included in the kit but is you want to check out more details first, click over to RNK’s website.

Go ahead and hack your jacket.

Hyper active e-textile DIY instruction creator Hannah Perner-Wilson aka Intructables user Plusea posted another simple to follow but highly interesting and useful project, the Pressure Sensor Matrix.

As her many other e-textile DIY instructions, the materials used are relatively easy to get, in this project an Arduino is needed to process the signals coming from the textile sensor.

Noticeable on this sensor: not only the position inside the matrix (X, Y) can be detected (and used to trigger different actions) but also the pressure force (Z direction). This sensor is very sensitive, reacting to very light pressure and keeps on changing (lowering) the resistance with increasing pressure force.

Check out the complete DIY instructions of this neat, simple pressure sensor matrix made of textiles with all it’s wonderful softness, flexibility and washability. Another great component for the e-textile crafter.

If you don’t have the time to sew the pressure sensor matrix yourself and/or you like to support Plusea’s e-textile instruction making, you can buy this sensor and other of her great e-textile components via her Etsy store.

The background story of the first e-textile DIY project the ‘Senior Remote‘ is as lovely as the project itself of transforming a hard plastic TV remote control into a cute soft remote control.

Intructables user ‘unknownuser2007‘ wanted to make life easier for mom to navigate her TV as she does get confused with the countless functions and buttons of todays TV remote controls that look like a cockpit of an jet. For her, like for many others, the basic functions of on/off, channel hopping and volume are what is needed and used most of the time.

Taking a remote control apart and replace the hard plastic shell with textiles, using conductive fabrics for the switch design is a cute idea useful not only for senior citizen but for folks that love to have something unique.

Following the instructions makes it easy to give any remote control a soft touch. The ‘Senior Remote’ project adds a soft panel on top to the plastic remote control but it would be easy to take away the entire plastic shell and replace it with a soft, textile skin.

If you do this, make sure you give some protection to the electronic components on the remote PCB by sandwiching it between cardboard or EVA material salvaged from a CD pouch for example.

Another interesting and inspiring example of an soft remote control is the ‘Teddy Bear remote control‘ from Instructables user ‘leahculver‘. Interesting on the Teddy Bear remote control is the use of snaps serving as on/off switch, a neat and cute solution.

Check out both projects as they can serve as inspirational basis for creating your very own soft touch remote control that will certainly make more fun to use.

This Saturday Zurich / Switzerland will see Hannah Perner Wilson and Mika Satomi unfolding their experience in creating interactive clothing during the workshop ‘Sew your own wearable musical interface’  which is part of the event ‘diy* —  Art and Technology Festival‘ .

As appetizer for workshop participants Hannah and Mika published the project details of this workshop on their Instructables sites.

Two equally interesting and inspiring instructions on how to create, with simplest materials and tools, cute and functional e-textile interfaces which not only can be used to play a piano on a shirt but open up the creative gate to other applications you might have in mind.

The value of these instructions is the demonstration on how to connect electronic elements to textiles and how to integrate an electronic infrastructure into textiles to connect to different components. These two examples demonstrate nicely how function like conductive lines can serve as aesthetic element to create beautiful patterns and ornaments.

Basically there are two choices one has to make when fusing technology and clothing: either hide the technology or make a style element out of it. Both ways have their advantage and it is up to the design and designer which option works best for a particular garment.

For all our reader who can/could not make it to the workshop in Zurich today click over to the Instructables of Hannah and Mika and let you inspire by their instructions. I am sure that both ladies will be more than happy to answer any question to these projects via the comments on the Instructables sites.

The complete workshop description and photos from the workshop afterwards can be found on KOBAKANT.at