Swatch Making

in progress

intro

Making swatches for e-textiles.

The goal is to provide examples for simple and more advanced circuits on fabric.

The possibilities to make "soft" versions of electronic components like switches and battery holders.

preperation

Table with tools

Putting a special spool with conductive thread inside the sewing machine.

Lock Machine

Table with swatches

tools

Machines

• Sewing machine
• lock machine
• soldering station

• scissors
• needles
• stitch undo tool

electronics

• leds
• coin cell batteries

led conductive thread connection

Connecting the legs of the LED to the thread is always a bit of a problem.

There is a method making an eyelet of the leg of the LED and knotting the thread.

I trepide out a new way for me, with a small clamp:

materials

• non conductive materials
• conductive materials
• vlisofix plus aluminium foil

ideas

• fabric battery holder
• making a circuit
• connecting a LED
• making a textile switch

Fails

From errors you learn the most. I thought I would get a better connection by making the stitch length smaller. But then the stitching on the heavy material gets irregular.

That induced me making a swatch of the different stitch length. It turned out that the default stitch length of the machine 2.4 mm was the best. I also tried out some decorative stitches, and the zig zags.

Intermediate stages

Because the sewing machine has a special spool cylinder for the conductive thread installed, the fabric battery holders have to be made later.

results

The first swatch is trying out the conductive thread, as can be seen, in plain stitching, when the stitch length is too small, the stitch gets irregular at this fabric.