Electrotextiles!

My current project for Uni is all about electro-textiles and creating road safety gear for children/teenagers. It's proving to be immensely interesting, horrendously easy to get side tracked and ridiculously hard to think up something that doesn't already exist... The world of material technology is ever fascinating so here are a few interesting projects =D

 

The M-dress mobile phone, no more missing calls because you have no pockets in your dress! You put the sim card into a slot in the dress and your dress becomes your phone... Missing someone? send them a bluetooth hug with the hug-shirt which uses bluetooth phone messaging to send a replication of your hug to someone you miss... Of course, I couldn't avoid a bit of knitting geekery, a scarf made using the encoding on a magnetic strip from a credit card, fed through a knitting machine.

To help us out with our electro-textile projects my tutor gave me these to play around with, a few bits and bobs from the PICaxe range. For whatever reason, she can't programme the wee chip in the middle so nothing would work.

I've figured out that, at the very least, the power supply and LED contacts and components work so the solder hasn't degraded. However, due to my Fruit I'm unable to actually programme anything! Mac's don't have the right data port for the conventional cable and don't support the recommended software, so I thought I was being all clever by using an ipod cable to link all the bits together and using a freeware download but apparently all you get is a surge of current, which shuts down your usb port... woops! It's a good thing Mac's are so clever and that i didn't just break everything. I'll have to try it tomorrow in the labs.

The idea ultimately is to create something for children/teenagers to wear to make them more visible when they are walking home from school/sports clubs. The biggest problem is coming up with something new that kids would actually wear.... The easiest bit is trawling the internet looking at loads of cool applications of electronics in clothing =D My Delicious page is now thoroughly plastered with silly links to fashion technology pages!

Meadows...

Hello =D

I've been working on crochet lately, partly because i was rubbish at it and i wanted to figure it out, and partly because I'm avoiding working on my latest portfolio for university... The upshot, is that after having figured out how to make crochet flowers, I have started a small meadow!

Some are in silk/merino blends, some are in bamboo, and some are in lambswool.

These are just a few examples, but they are growing by the second!

I experimented a little with size and petal density and i decided i like the little ones best. It's a very quick way to use up leftover yarn! so I'll probably be making lots more of these.

I also made some panels for a crochet cushion. The idea is to sew these onto a fabric cushion cover, but I think for the future I'll make an entirely crocheted cover and put this over a covered cushion filler instead. This was using a single skein of Rowan Colourscape in Autumn. I might have to get more of this and do a knitted cushion cover so you can see the colour progression horizontally as well!

Shop Update

I've been busy making things for Etsy lately, I put up a lot of badges last night and I made a few other things out of scraps.

I have these little beauties to go up soon (the lights not the best)

But I'm still deciding on what they will be, and whether I'll add anything else to them.


I've been a "bit" rubbish at updating this what with university coursework and christmas!

New Years Resolution No. 1: Update my blog and Etsy shop more often!

The hills are alive... with 50mph winds!

Today I went up Arthur's seat to be blown away by the wind, and on the way up I saw this lovely rainbow which you can just about see in the photo.

Rescue Mission

Tomorrow it is my Dad's birthday, and after his family, cake and honey the number one thing my dad loves is his allotment emporium. Originally he started off by tending my Mum's secret allotment, his empire grew to 7 at one point (helping other people set up and tend theirs) but now cares mainly for 2 charity plots for Autistic adults and his own.

But sadly, he has been very busy the past year setting up the charity plots and recovering a few dying allotments and so his own has been left to suffer. Therefore, for his bir

thday I decided we should spend a day doing what he loves and rescue it!

This is the before....

Poor sad allotment, I couldn't tell what was supposed to be here for quite a while. And this is half an hour later just as we went in to escape the sudden downpour.

We then did the second best task at the allotment, which is to sit in the shed making tea and sandwiches and talking nonsense. The idea was to wait until the rain went off, but it never did! So i cunningly suggested we should clean the poly tunnel instead.

As you can see, it's in a bit of a state. If I'd have taken this picture a week earlier you would have seen sweetcorn plants bending over and growing along the roof they were so tall!

We had a lot of rubbish so we made somewhere to put it, it's still undecided whether this is a compost bin or somewhere to dry out material for burning... we daftly but tomato plants in there and they are not good for compost...

So here is our invention with a swinging door! Ultimate recycling, i think these palettes where supposed to be for fencing but they have been there for months doing nothing. They look much happier now they have a purpose in life.

Our speedy work was then interrupted by thirst and Arthur (national newcomer champion!) so we had a (lengthy) chat about compost and welding, then went to get refreshment in the form of more tea and a biscuit in the shed.

If you have ever seen the movie "Grow Your Own" you will agree that it is very accurate as to it's depiction of allotment odd-bods, if you haven't seen it, DO!

How I turned an old skirt into a new bag!

I had this skirt. This wonderful skirt that once was a wardrobe favourite and has since fallen into disuse. I had kept it for months because I couldn't bare losing it with all those beautiful colours! But I never wore it because I don't have anything to match anymore.

I tried to give it to a charity shop, I really did but some things just can't be parted with. So instead, having been inspired by a few refashionista articles, I made my self a new book bag for when I go back to Uni in a few weeks time.

I knew what I wanted to do, but actually figuring out a design took me a surprisingly long time, the main problem was that this skirt flared out a fair bit, and therefore I couldn't cut out a flat piece of fabric from it to make the bag body. I attempted to cheat by smoothing it out every way I could think of but in the end I had to suck it up and undo the seams of each panel (painful!) and sew them back together to make a flat fab

ric. The thought of ripping out all that thread made me want to scream, but once I'd made the decision it wasn't as emotionally draining as I'd thought it would be and I actually found myself enjoying this task! It also meant I had a chance to use the zipper from the side of the waist, I had hoped I could salvage this. I don't have a good zipper selection round here so when a cool one comes my way it's too precious to waste!

Next, after much thought as to what shape the bag would be and how i would construct and reinforce the handles I decided to go for a very simple rectangle big enough to get a couple of textbooks into and sewed up the edges nice and tight. It started to look like a bag!

I had bought this dotty fabric from my local fabric heaven for 40p. It was the last 50cm of the roll and was so beautiful I couldn't leave it there (especially not for 40p!) when I new it would come in handy somewhere along the line. Fortunately for me not only are the colours a perfect match, but it was also the perfect size to line my bag and make a handle! So I whipped this up nice and quickly! I also made a quick little zipper pouch using the original skirt zipper which I sewed onto the lining fabric to keep my keys and phone safe.

The strap is just a simple tube of leftover lining material which i then pinned in between the outer and the inner fabric where the side seams where. Two lines of stitching later and a quick reinforce of the bag straps and it's good to go! 

After all the effort I put into this bag, I am so glad I didn't get rid of that skirt. 

Now I can wear it forever!

Disaster breeds innovation!

Today, after the second bread baking disaster within one 24 hour period, I decided I needed to so some crafting to wake myself up. I have so many unfinished projects (they even have their own special draw these days) that i decided they HAD to be finished.

I wombled over to my sewing machine to finish making my bunting. I had to do a lot of ironing and pinning and even more faffing trying to post string through the ribbon loop to get it done, but now that it is finished, it looks really cool! I'll get some photos of it once I've cleaned my bedroom/makers heaven enough to be able to uncover the camera. (Actually, that reminds me I still haven't unpacked my suitcase yet from my People to People tour... So THAT'S where all my clothes are!)

I still haven't decided what to make for my neighbours to celebrate their new delivery into this world (a baby boy!) I keep going from jumper, to hat and mits, to baby blanket, do I knit it or do I sew it?? Basically I'm in a creative code red. I got a book from the library the other day about quilting and patchwork so obviously I'm dying to get to grips with my sewing machine... but on the other hand I can't buy any new materials because I promised myself I wouldn't until I had dramatically depleted what I already have!

Dilemma aside, I figure a good way to use up the yarn is to make cushion covers. They are a nice easy way to use up lots of yarn in a functional yet cool way. So I put in a punch card into the machine to kill two birds by figuring out how this very useful feature of the knitting machine works and use up extra yarn! It is very snazzy indeed! But knitting 130 stitches and 200 rows on this machine is positively exhausting. I'm going to end up looking like Popeye because I tend to use my right arm all the time to move the carriage... Even at the loosest tension it doesn't seem to make it any easier today hmm...

Well, what with it being such a nice day outside I might just have to pause from my epic "project finishing" mission for a little bit and maybe start something new.... crochet sounds fun...