See-thru-me is a project by Meg Grant that uses LEDs and light sensitive resistors to give the effect of light being passed through the body. When a light is shined on the wearer's back, the LEDs on the front light up in the corresponding place. It seems to me based on the pictures that there aren't any microcontrollers being used in this project, just each photoresistor controlling one LED. [via Fashioning Technology]

Diana Eng's new Fairytale Fashion video is about playing with the Drawdio and conductive embroidery to create fun, interactive noises.

E-pressed is a jacket that uses a galvanic skin response sensor to measure your need for acupressure. The spots where a friend might help relieve your "negative emotions" are highlighted with LEDs and a graphic, and they contain soft buttons to sense massage. I agree with Syuzi @ Fashioning Technology when she says this project is "an interesting exploration on how wearable technology can become used either as training tools for alternative medical therapy or home therapy," but I'm not sure I buy into the emotional "inner state" benefit just yet. Hannah Perner-Wilson's Massage Me jacket, which turns massaging your friend into a video game (fun for everyone)!

Captain Electric and Battery Boy is a heady fashion project with electronic elements in the clothing that respond to the actions of the wearer. The three dresses in the collection, Itchy, Sticky, and Stiff, each create a different thought provoking paradox. Stiff translates pressure into soothing music, Sticky harnesses the power of the wearers struggle against restraint into blue light. But my favorite, Itchy, makes good use of the agitated fidgets caused by it's purposefully uncomfortable and oversized wool necklaces. With enough fiddling, the kinetic energy powers jewel-like LEDs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I just figured out what I'm doing for Halloween: LED eyelashes by Soomi Park. [via Fashioning Technology]

Sean @ MAKE writes:

Last Thursday evening I had the pleasure of attending my first Dorkbot Austin, at Cafe Mundi on E. 5th St. At least fifty were in attendance, and six people presented original work, most of which I'll be blogging over the next few days. First up, I wanted to mention this luminous flowerpot clock, with LED pistils and modeling-clay petals, by Flickr user Spyderella, aka Sharon Cichelli. It flip-flops two of seven LEDs to mark the hours, and gradually illuminates the remaining five at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 minutes past. It's controlled by an external Arduino for prototyping purposes, but eventually will be entirely self-contained. There's video here. Sharon credits Syuzi Pakhchyan's Fashioning Technology for inspiration.  

In the Maker Shed:

Fashioning Technology

Ready to take your craft projects to the next level? With "smart" materials, unorthodox assembly techniques, and the right tools, you can create accessories, housewares, and toys that light up, make sounds, and more.

Elena Corchero uses reflective materials to bring style to cycling safety. I particularly like the reflective scarf and reflective socks. [via designboom]

More:

Solar Hand Fan by Elena Corchero

CRAFT and MAKE friend Diana Eng a new wearable tech project going on; it looks awesome! The project description:

From October to December 2009, I will be making magical clothes for Fairytale Fashion. These might be clothes that have blooming flowers, living clothes that breathe, change color, transform. And guess what, YOU will be leading the design! Each Monday, FairytaleFashion.org will have a new video that introduces a technology like inflatables, deployable structures, muscle wire and microcontrollers. At the end of each video is a design question. Answer the weekly design questions on our website. I will use your answers to create the Fairytale Fashion. Finally, the finished garments will be presented in a fashion show in early 2010. Fairytale Fashion is produced with the support of Eyebeam.

Jai Yi Lin made these networked zipper communicators for two far-away people to share how much they miss each other with a zip zip and an LED meter. [via Fashioning Technology]

In the Maker Shed:

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

Check out this NYT article about fellow Parsons alum Alison Lewis and her soft technology houswares:

Ms. Lewis, who once worked for DuPont creating prototypes like a WiFi-detecting scarf, is developing products under her Switch brand. A flexible pocket of zebra-patterned silk holds six bud vases made from test tubes and a volume meter. When it detects sound — Ms. Lewis demonstrated by singing softly — the vases light up. She’s proudest of a squashy pale blue felt rectangle with a bright red canvas pompom she calls Pillow Talk. It’s made to be hooked up to an iPhone, which turns the whole pillow into a phone.

(Thanks, Daniel Carter!)

Here's an interesting event happening this weekend in NYC:

On September 12 and 13, 2009, during New York Fashion Week, the mainstream fashion community, the independent fashion community, and fashion's next wave of wearable technologists will convene at FashionCampNY to address the future of fashion in the 21st Century.

To be held at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program Center (721 Broadway), FashionCampNY is the first large event to bring together disparate parts of the fashion community to discuss and explore the intersection of fashion and technology. For two days, roughly 300 fashion professionals, designers, innovators and fashion-lovers will teach and converse about the future of fashion, exploring emerging questions through workshops, presentations, and collaboration. It is an “unconference” attended and run by the participants.

I'll be helping run a soft circuits workshop, so come on out!

This dress is called the "Itchy Dress," and it uses kinetic energy to power lights in the garment. It's part of a fashion collection code-named "Captain Electric and Battery Boy" by XS Labs in Montreal. Via Fashioning Technology.

Artist Laura Cesari has created an awesome Glow Beadwork Kit that combines beginning-level beadwork with an intro to sewing soft circuits with conductive thread. Just follow step-by-step instructions to create a glowing beaded bracelet or necklace, or an illuminated patch to sew on your clothing. There is no soldering required and the only tool not included in the kit is scissors. Light it up!

One of my favorite soft circuit mavens, Hannah Perner-Wilson, has teamed up with Mika Satomi to bring you a new site called How to Get What You Want, a container site for all the totally rad projects they've been cranking out recently. Bookmark their site for your reference, I know I just did. I love that the graphic is made up of a bunch of soft circuit techniques. Via Fashioning Technology.

More soft circuits and fashion tech on CRAFT:

• Soft Circuits Archives
  
• Fashion Tech Archives
  

Gareth @ MAKE points us to an awesome new resource for soft circuits and other electronic wearables called Open Softwear, produced by folks associated with K3, the Malmö University School of Arts and Communication in Sweden. I'm digging the simple illustrations and easy-to-follow examples. Downlowd the free PDF to get started.

More:

• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101
  
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Bike Patch
  
• TV-B-Gone Hoodie and Zipper Switch
  
• Electronic Embroidery/Sewing Kit

In the Maker Shed:

Lilypad E-Sewing Kit

Over on Etsy's Storque, Diana Eng has a tutorial from her book, Fashion Geek, on making this LED "nightlife" necklace.

Aram Bartholl is pioneering twitter fashion with his Tweet Bubble Series (shirt pocket version pictured). Sort of like wearing your heart on your sleeve, made in four styles including one with conductive thread affecting a thermochromic sweatshirt! Via F.A.T.

My favorite blog-I-can't-actually-understand, 203gow (a crafty Japanese woman who makes the most incredible crochet things), just posted this headphone hat. It's like an electronic sea anemone growing from a kids' bike helmet, and I love it. If you can read Japanese, please translate for us!

Karen Curley and Lindsay Broomfield made this LED dress for the band Bachelorette using a LilyPad Arduino and some LilyPad sewable LEDs. Check out the Flickr set. Via Fashioning Technology.

More:

• New soft circuit kits in the maker shed and massive soft electronics roundup
  
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101
  
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Blinking Bike Patch
  

If you're in Brooklyn this weekend, you may be able to attend this Thermochromatic Embroidery Workshop being offered at 3rd Ward tomorrow.

Take embroidery to the next level! In this class we will make a simple hat and embroider a design on it that is interactive. I’ll teach you how to use thermochromic ink that, when wired up correctly, changes color with the flick of a switch on your hat. You must have basic hand sewing skills or at least some manual dexterity. A basic concept of electronics is helpful, but a willingness to follow directions would suffice.

Via Fashioning Technology.

One of the most common DIY LilyPad Arduino uses seems to be in bike wear. I don't know if it's because bike riders like electronics or what, but here's another one! Instructables user kempton made this very attractive cycling jacket with LED buttons, and wrote up a detailed step-by-step tutorial for making your own, complete with turn signals.

More:

• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Blinking Bike Patch
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101
  
• HOW TO - Make a Turn Signal Bike Jacket

In this Threadbanger episode, learn to sew a simple circuit to create an embroidered robot with glowing LED eyes. Diana Eng shows you this project from her book, Fashion Geek.

More:

• Fashion Hacking with Diana Eng on May 10th in Brooklyn, NY
  
• Checkin' In: Fashion Nerd Diana Eng
  
• Electronic Embroidery - CRAFT Video Podcast
  
• Electronic Embroidery
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Sew up this little colorful brooch using a LilyPad tri-color LED and three small potentiometers for a customizable color wardrobe embellishment. No programming required!

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

Potentiometers are variable resistors. They change the amount of electricity that can pass through them based on the turning of the knob, thereby dimming and brightening the three channels of the tri-color LED. The colors mix and diffuse through the roving, producing any color in the rainbow. Here's the front,

and the back,

and here's the diagram for sewing the components together.

Materials and tools:

• conductive thread (E-sewing Kit)
• coincell battery (E-sewing Kit)
• sewable battery holder (E-sewing Kit)
• LilyPad tri-color LED (Sparkfun)
• 3 small 1K-ohm potentiometers (Digikey)
• small on-off pushbutton switch (Digikey)
• brooch template (cardboard or illustration board)
• fabric
• needle and thread
• pin back
• wool roving
• felting needle
• felting surface (upholstery foam scrap works great)
• scissors
• pliers
• alligator clips for prototyping

More:

• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101
  
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Blinking Bike Patch
  
• Electronic Embroidery - CRAFT Video Podcast

In the Maker Shed:

LilyPad E-Sewing Kit

Diana writes:

I will be bringing a bit of Project Runway to my hacker group, NYC Resistor on May 10th when we host Fashion Hacking: Open Working Studio. Come and hack fashion with us. BYOC (bring your own clothes) and we'll have the tailoring tools, sewing machines, conductive thread, LED's, soldering irons, and the Laser Cutter to help you hack clothes into fashionable technology. Fashion designers and hardware hackers will be on hand to help you.

This is an open working studio which means that you are free to circulate, work on your own project and look at other projects. Come to session 1, come to session 2, come to both sessions.

Session 1, 1-3 pm, $20
Session 2, 3-5 pm, $20
Buy tickets: http://fashionhacking.eventbrite.com/

Sarah James at Instructables shows us how easy it is to make your own mineral makeup. She writes:

Mineral makeup is more than just a new beauty trend - it offers health benefits for skin as well. And now you can make it at home! It's made of all natural, finely ground minerals from the earth, without many of the chemicals, dyes, and preservatives found in traditional makeup. I have VERY sensitive skin, and have had trouble in the past with commercial makeup (even store-bought mineral makeup!) being too heavily fragrances, or containing irritants like bismuth oxychloride. This formula eliminates classic irritants so that it's kinder to the skin. Since it contains titanium dioxide which has anti-inflammatory properties, it also has a calming effect on the skin, particularly important if you suffer from inflammatory problems such as rosacea or acne. AND I've added micronized zinc oxide to give it an SPF rating, helping to further protect skin from damage and wrinkles. By making your own at home, you can control not only the purity of the ingredients you use, you can also create a custom color, matched exactly to your own skin tone!

Via the CRAFT Flickr pool, Marisa Ranalli made this totally amazing handmade electronic and fiber dress powered by LilyPad Arduinos and included LEDs and nitinol wire (an alloy that changes shape when electricity is applied). It's her final project in the Textiles program at Sheridan College in Toronto, and it's totally rad! I'd love to see a video about it. It will be shown at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery from April 30th-May 10th.

More:

• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101
• CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino Bike Patch
  

Gareth @ MAKE points out Jeri Ellsworth's amazing purse with a built-in classic Nintendo system, complete with Velcro-attached controllers. It's also a Commodore 64. It would be perfect for impressing your date or even just on long car trips! Photo by Rose White.

Want to get your hands working with the LilyPad Arduino system? There's a workshop being held in Berkeley this summer on the topic. It will be two full days of getting started with the LilyPad and conductive materials for use in your own projects, taught by Adrian Freed. Via Fashioning Technology.

By cutting, sewing, sticking, weaving, and layering unusual e-textiles we will build interactive clothing and musical instruments in a collaborative workshop environment. We will connect our fabric pressure, stretch, bend, and displacement sensors to lilypad e-sewing computing platform, we will sew connections to arrays of leds and sound makers. We will explore CNMAT's extensive library of e-textiles and more advanced techniques such as computer controlled embroidery and laser cutting. We will look at variants and alternatives to the lilypad such as wireless xbee or uOSC.

E-textile Workshop

July 25-26, 10 AM-5 PM

CNMAT, Berkeley, CA

Fee: $300 (includes materials fee with lilypad system you keep after the class)

More:

CRAFT Video: LilyPad Arduino 101

New Soft Circuit Kits in the Maker Shed and Massive Soft Electronics Roundup

Electronic Embroidery/Sewing Kit