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This tutorial is a combination of the  DIY unicorn hoodie  tutorial I found on Pinterest and Adafruit's light up unicorn 3D print tutorial. I used some supplies from Adafruit's candle bows  that we made a few years back instead of buying new materials. You can buy the sewing conductive kit separately on Adafruit without the bows.  I won't go through every excruciating detail but here are some tips that they don't mention and a few workarounds that worked for me based on my supplies.  Supplies needed from both tutorials:  Hoodie (dress in my case) Yarn 3D printed Unicorn Horn with LED base 3D printer with clear PLA filament (I didn't use flexible as the tutorial calls for and it was fine) 1 LED (11mm tall X 7.91 mm wide) Conductive Thread Needle (small enough the fit through the battery holder brass side holes. In the Adafruit kit, I used the smallest needle on the right) Battery Holder Regular Thread Felt (not necessary bu...

We recently finished a 3 day workshop on sewing with conductive thread for 5-8th graders.  The students made felt ornaments for the holiday season.  We used the adafruit electronic sewing kit for our supply list. One of our biggest hurdles was getting the kids to learn to sew (and having the patience for it!). Also, thinking about the stages of design before actually committing to sewing. How can the lights be arranged and still make the circuit work? (since the positive and negative sides can't cross).  What's the easiest place to put the battery holder? How does using a snap or button affect the circuit? Tips:  1. Begin by practicing threading a needle and perhaps work on different stitches (without conductive thread).  Ellen has this great stitch book that she made with another group a while back. 2. When you are setting up LEDs label positive and negative sides on felt or with tape 3. Might want to skip adding a switch for the first ornament 4....

So you want to add more pizazz than just LED lights? See Part 1 for conductive thread tutorial. This is where littleBits , my favorite magnetic circuit toy, comes in handy. Bits used: Button, bargraph, wire (2), power, servo motor, battery, plastic shoes and Velcro shoes. Originally my idea was to make a felt waving snowman but when I actually tried to put it on the sweater, the arm waving failed miserably. The servo ended up on my shoulder (an easier place to hold the motor anyway).  The bargraph and button ended up underneath the 2nd circle on the snowman with a Velcro shoe to affix it to the sweater. I hand stitched the snowman around the major outline to keep all the bits from moving with regular thread.  No conductive thread is necessary for this part. I bought the sweater at a thrift shop so I had no problem cutting holes into it to fish the servo motor underneath the sweater. The servo bit had a Velcro shoe attached with more Velcro sewed on the underside of the ...

The holiday season is upon us and that means it is time for Ugly Sweater Day on December 12th. If you're invited to a party or trying to outdo your co-workers to see who can come up with the best, why not try to electrify your masterpiece? There are a few ways you could go:   For my tree decoration, I decided to use conductive thread, felt, snaps, a 3V watch battery with holder and LEDs. We found all of these items in the Adafruit Candle LED bow kit that we recycled from a previous program. This is a project to directly sew onto any plain sweater (since the ugly sweaters have probably all been scooped up from the thrift stores by now) or make it a pin and not do any permanent damage to your sweater.  One downside to using a 3v battery holder, there is no on/off switch so I used a dark green felt piece for a snap to connect/disconnect the circuit.     I highly advise to plan out your conductive path and LED placement on paper beforehand. It's a bum...