25, 26 July 2009
Constant, foam, okno, nadine
Brussels, Belgium
To explore the possibilities of bringing electronics closer to bodies and plants we are organizing a workshop in which you will learn how to use textiles and electronics to interact with humans and plants.

I have tried various methods, such as knitting and stitching with resistive thread, applying carbon paint to jersey, mixing conductive fibers with stretchy fabric glue, stretching various conductive materials to see if this changes their conductive properties… and some of it worked, sometimes inconstantly or even incoherently or just wore out over time too quickly.

WORK IN PROGRESS
Exploring different possibilities to knit stretch sensors.

also: loop stitch, fur stitch, crocet loop fabric
I really like the following loopy samples. There are different techniques and they can either be crocheted or knitted. The loops can be left as loops or cut and they will not unravel as the way it is worked essentially ties off the ends.

also see: Materials >> Conductive Threads
You can’t solder to most conductive threads, but there are conductive threads that are actually made by spinning very thin flattened wire around a soft, flexible core, and these are great for soldering to.

also see: Materials >> Conductive Fabrics
Of the conductive fabrics I tried soldering to, only the copper FlecTron fabric distributed by LessEMF was very reliable. There was another silver fabric that worked, but I don’t know the source. The Laird conductive fabric tape was also good, so were copper mesh and copper foil tape with conductive [...]

used in: fabric buttons
felt can be used instead of foam as a spacer material in fabric buttons. It can also be used to replace neoprene in some cases, because of it’s thickness. Crafting felts are very common and easy to get your hands on at a local craft or possibly even stationary store. There are [...]

This sensor is the very first example of something I made with the circular knitting machine.

MIDI, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a useful protocol for controlling synthesizers, sequencers, and other musical devices. MIDI devices are generally grouped in to two broad classes: controllers (i.e. devices that generate MIDI signals based on human actions) and synthesizers (including samplers, sequencers, and so forth). The latter take MIDI data in and make [...]