It has become fully apparent that if you want to keep up on what I’m making in anything approaching real-time, you should be following me on twitter (if you’re a non-tweeter, you can follow this RSS feed instead). It’s so much quicker to toss out a link there, and I’m way more sporadic about writing on the blog. However, I’ve got a lot to share, so I decided I should finally come post an update over here! Continue Reading →
Update: A tutorial with instructions to make your own Skirt Full of Stars is now posted at StarSkirt.PolymathDesignLab.com
In case you haven’t seen my last post about it, this is a hand-sewn tulle wrap skirt with integrated fiber optics and lights that change color in response to the speed and direction of the wearer’s movement.
It uses the Lilypad Arduino platform, developed for integrating electronics into textiles. There’s a purple organza underlayer to the skirt onto which is sewn the Lilypad main circuit board and a power supply, and an accelerometer hangs from a ribbon to allow for freedom of movement. The Lilypad receives the measurements of the accelerometer’s movement, and translates them into color output for the tricolor LEDs around the waistband of the skirt.
I used sparkle fiber optic cable to cut the harsh quality that you can get when using LEDs and distribute the light more evenly throughout the skirt. In previous prototypes I had simply created a line of LEDs swirling around the skirt, and this makes for a far more subtle and wearable effect.
I have to say, getting decent video of this skirt was quite a challenge! Too much light and the fiber optics didn’t show up on camera, too little and nothing showed up at all. Even this isn’t an accurate representation of what it looks like in person – the camera mostly just picks up the points of light from fiber optics pointed directly at it, where in person you can see them all around the skirt. But hopefully it at least gives a decent idea of how the whole thing works…
It looks like I’ll be making another of these soon, so I plan to take more photos of the construction process and post the instructions here as I go.
If you’re not feeling the yearning to jump into making wearable electronics yourself but you still want your own, send me an email at shannon@polymathdesignlab.com. I had a lot of fun creating this and would be thrilled to make some as custom projects.
Hooray, Hooray – it’s finally done!
Introducing my ‘Skirt Full of Stars’ – an interactive, illuminated skirt using the Lilypad Arduino – a microcontroller board designed for textile use. The skirt incorporates an accelerometer to measure the wearer’s movement, and the ‘stars’ change color based on that movement.
After months of tweaking my design, I was finally able to launch my Spirosketch jewelry sets last weekend at Urban Craft Uprising, and I’m so excited! Continue Reading →
Oh gracious, my poor neglected blog! Techshop Portland got their laser cutter, and ever since then I’ve been spending most of my spare moments over there, and not writing much of anything longer than a tweet! (And yes, if you do want to hear from me a bit more often, you can do so by following @Spiralshannon, or subscribing to my twitter rss feed.)
So, anyway, things have been pretty exciting over here. I’ll be selling at Crafty Wonderland this Sunday – my first craft fair! I have a new set of designs based on work I’ve been doing with Context Free Art - software that allows you to create images by writing algorithms, and which is pretty easy to learn if you have even the most basic programming background (which is all I have… I’ve done the barest touch of javascript coding, but I taught the “Advanced BASIC” class at a computer camp back in college.) I’ve only photographed one item out of the new set, and it was selected to appear in the promotional email for this weekend’s show, which has me a bit giddy.
There’s more to tell, but honestly I think I’ll have a better chance of getting back to posting regularly if I don’t force myself to sit here and write about it all right this minute. Besides, I have to finish getting everything ready for the craft show! So, if you’ll be in Portland on Sunday, come check out the show (11am to 4 pm at the Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside) and get to be among the first few people to see the rest of the new pieces. If not, sit tight and I’ll start posting them next week, and I promise I’ll be back to write more soon!
