Rounding of this weeks simplicity theme on talk2myShirt I found a perfectly fitting DIY project that demonstrates that low-tech creativity when integrating a bit of technology into clothing accessories can solve daily problems when handling our indispensable pocket devices.

Tangling headphone cords are one of the ‘evil’ things we have grown to accept due to the lack of better alternatives. The HoodieBuddie we posted earlier this week is one great looking solution for this problem.

Crafter LauPre has another low-tech DIY solution, the Zipper Earbud Cover that looks good and could even be used to retrofit existing clothing with DIY headphone cord management.

The concept is lovingly simple to make: take a zipper and a pair of your favorite ear-buds, wrap them in the sewing strip of the zipper and sew it up all the way.

The zipper adds some weight and smoothness to the cord allowing it to flow down, to stay close to the wearers body. The zipper can adjust the fit of the cable length going to each ear-bud, which does help to minimize the cable tangling. Best of all – it looks cool.

A fabulous, inspirational idea almost everyone will be able to pull off in no time and personalize his/her earphone cord.

[via: CraftZine]

Need something special for Christmas, something unique? A bit of DIY and the fabulous instructions from Alison Lewis help you to create a sparkling light-up bow for your gift wrapping during this holiday season.

Alison Lewis, an expert when it comes to demystify technology and use it in unconventional ways as we have seen in one of her latest projects the Illuminated Wedding Dress, put together a short instructional video that shows how to electrify a simple bow and spice it up with a a magical glow.

The light-up bow is made in a few minutes with materials most people have around the house and the only technical stuff needed is a couple of LEDs (the type with the long legs) and a button cell battery. No soldering or even sewing is needed, just bending and gluing.

I like projects like this, spicing up everyday objects with the mystical touch of electronics in it’s simplest form and use but presented in a highly aesthetical and not technical way.

A tip for more adventurous eTextile enthusiasts: combine the bow switch concept from Riccardo with the Light-up Bow from Alison and you got the cutest Christmas wrapping no one will throw away after unwrapping the presents.

Next to Instructables the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories is one of the interesting sites I regularly scan for simple, eTextile suitable projects.

As LEDs are one of the favorite components eTextile artists are using I had a look around on how to make LEDs come to life when it makes most sense – when it goes dark.

Sensors often require the use of a micro processor which usually cost some money and can be a bit challenging to use by occasional electronic users like the eTextile community.

The Evil Mad Scientist has the solution: a phototransistor, a transistor, a 1k resistor and an LED.

Click over to the instruction where you can find also the theory behind this simple yet effective light sensor to switch on the sparkle by magical low tech.

Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson have posed on ‘How To Get What You Want‘ another variant of this simple sensor using a 100k ohm potentiometer instead of the 1k resistor which allows to adjust the level of low light by which the LEDs should switch on/off.

eTextile enthusiasts who visit the Smart Textile Salon coming September 25th in Ghent, Belgium have the opportunity to participate in a one hour ToolTime session hosted by Mika Satomi.

There will be two sessions each has space for 30 participants. No registration for those workshops is necessary, it will be on a who comes first can join basis.

Mika will bring to this workshop her vast experience from her work in the eTextile arena with her involvement at Kobakant (e.g. Massage-Me costume) and her own projects on Nerding. She will also present the recently launched ‘How to get what you want‘ project, a cooperation between Mika, Hannah Perner-Wilson and the DistanceLab.

If you are visiting the STS, make sure you reserve time to attend this highly interesting ToolTime session with Mika.

The Evil Mad Scientist‘s at their Laboratories have created a cute business sized card version of an LED Resistance Calculator, taking these calculators off-line and into your pocket.

As eTextile crafters use frequently LEDs I thought to beam up this DIY project for all those (including myself) who end up in front of rows of LEDs and resistors at the hardware store and want to know quickly the best combination of them for the design of the next, illuminated textile project.

Sure there are plenty of LED resistor calculators online, of course everyone has a shopping list before heading to the hardware store but then …. you will never find the values of LEDs you had in mind pack at the drawing board.

Head over to the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, download and print the LED Resistance Calculator template, fold and glue it and put it in your pocket before you head out next time to the hardware store.

[via: Daily DIY]

Being stuck right now with days of grey summer rain I was looking around to light up my mood a bit and found an Instructables that might just be able to do this: the Electric Umbrella from sockmaster.

The project is fairly simple and good documented in the Instructables. What’s needed to bring sun shine into the rainy days is a couple of LEDs, a variable resistor for dimming the light output and switch the light on and off.

As outlined in the Instructables if you use 3 volt LEDs there is no need to add resistors for the LEDs but if lower powered LEDs are used it’s not that difficult to add them. As eTextile expert you might replace the wire with conductive yarn which will give even more flexibility and I guess also more robustness to the LED grid which needs to be fixed inside the umbrella fabric.

Scanning through the comments of this Instructables there is a suggestion to maybe ass solar panels (small, flexible type) so the umbrella can be used to give you some protection when the sun is burning down and charging the batteries to power your private sunshine during rainy days.

The solar panel addition will increase the complexity of the project greatly but on the other hand, it’s a cool idea to hack an umbrella.

Good news for DIY enthusiasts: more and more companies offer components from their product portfolio for DIY projects making it easy to explore their latest technologies.

Voltaic, well known as pioneer of solar power bags has added a DIY Solar Project Site offering solar panels, battery packs and a huge selection of connectors (it’s shocking to see how many different charging connectors electronic companies using, even within their own product range).

The solar project site offers suggestions on what to do with solar panels. Notable for our topic is the Solar Bike Pannier DIY project demonstrating how to add solar power to a biker bag.

The material costs (everything is available on Voltaic’s DIY store) run up to $165.- excluding a bag to modify. It’s not the cheapest DIY project but solar power bags are quite practical according the feedback we got from the biker community as the solar panels are usually fully exposed to the sun when they are riding across the country and pick up a lot of sun power on the way.

Starting with Voltaic’s components the DIY instruction is fairly simple and straight forward as it basically does not need any soldering or electrical component handling but focuses on the fixation for the solar panels and placement of the power-pack.

With all the sunshine around these days, a solar power bag might be something to consider to complement your digital life style.

Instructables member Mikey Berman points out that Equalizer T-Shirt come with rather simple, underpowered microphones which are usually inside the box that hold also the batteries. This little box is inside pocket on the T-Shirt making it quite insensitive to pick up all sounds around.

Those EQ T-Shirts have also no provision to connect an MP3 player to feed the equalizer with your own mood songs to visualize your mood.

Mikey came up with a cool Equalizer T-Shirt hack showing a simple and cheap way to hack into your Equalizer T-Shirt, expanding the connectivity to hook up any audio source and add better quality microphones or an label mic which is attached to your collar, pickup up your voice better for visualization on the EQ display.

Hacking electronics is as old as electronics itself. Hacking clothing is rather new but will become more common and fun with the emergence of wearable electronic products.

Hacking is basically a different term of personalization and personalization is an important element in fashion – right?!

Want to add some sparkle to your wardrobe, cushions or bags? Neon Trim has a wide selection of soft, flexible Neon wires for DIY enthusiasts to add light elements to clothing and more.

The site is full of information about how EL (Electroluminescent) wires work and how to use them. Getting the next rocking stage wear a la Duft Punk is easy to make yourself with the EL-kits on offer.

If you want to light up the dark days of this winter season checkout their
online store for some inspiration. Adding some light emitting elements to your outfit will greatly increase your visibility in the low light conditions, it’s easy to integrate and fun.

I like the cute light up shoelaces which are waterproof and resistant to slipping and pulling forces. They are sold ready for use but only a few pieces are left as Neon Trim has unfortunately discontinued this type of EL-wire.

A recent article by Charlie Foster for Forbes.com about the wearable electronic DIY movement describes the ‘cross over point’ between the ‘boy’s only’ club of silicon based tinkering and the ‘arts-and-crafts’ community traditionally a more feminine domain.

The marriage of tech and fashion opens the doors for crafters to learn how to solder and tinkerers to learn sewing.

The article describes how Leah Buechley started out in 2005 by creating her now famous LED tank top, one of the first Do-It-Yourself wearable electronic project. Since then Leah has tirelessly invented, developed and created components for use in the e-textile environment merging the electronic with the textile world.

Leah’s work brought immense advancements into the wearable electronic DIY community with the creation of the LilyPad Arduino, a ‘textilized’ circuit board with microprocessor and other essential ‘ready to use’ e-textile components. The  availability of the LilyPad components provide DIY enthusiasts a quick way to build interactive fashion projects or just have fun with a bit of interactive, blinking fashion accessories or, as Syuzi Pakhchyan formulates: “Who needs diamonds when you have LEDs?” in her book ‘Fashioning Technology‘.

As regular reader of talk2myShirt you are of course up-to-date with the developments of the commercial side of wearable electronic as well as the fast growing DIY interest into sewing ‘textilized’ electronics to create interactive clothing.

Interactive Clothing that serves as second skin, interacting and reacting to our environment we live in, bringing back the form of interaction with our environment we have lost at the moment humans started to cover the skin with dead, lifeless materials called textiles.

Wearable Electronic is not only iPod controlling jackets and bags. Wearable Electronic will extend our senses, senses we have lost or we cover up.

DIY activities alone will not be able to accomplish this target but the DIY community can and will unleash a huge pool of creativity which can lead into successful implementation into (mass)consumable products.

Visit Forbes.com to read the complete article, it’s a great summary of the wearable electronic DIY movement.