Electronic Embroidery

Check out some of Rebecca Stern's newest embroideries on Craftzine:

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/06/electronic_embroidery_craft_vi.html

Check out the upcoming conference at MIT:

TEI'10 - THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TANGIBLE, EMBEDDED, AND EMBODIED INTERACTION

January 25-27, 2010

MIT Media Lab - Cambridge, MA, USA

http://www.tei-conf.org/10/

NYT Home Crafts Get Wired

Alison Lewis, 35, seen here in the Philadelphia home she shares with her boyfriend, is part of a wave of young product designers intent on embedding electronics into "soft" areas like fashion or home furnishings.

For more.

Visit to the Fashion & Textile Museum in London UK

Last week, while at DiGRA, I went to see the 'Undercover' exhibit on underwear at the London Fashion and Textile Museum. Not exactly the topic for our K-12 crowd. Nevertheless, there was one design, which imitated tattoos, that might lend itself for computational textile applications. Designers could use LEDs to reveal a tattoo like a hidden design. It's a bit of a stretch, I admit.

The visit to the book store didn't reveal much; in fact, the bounty was rather sparse. I was much more successful in the Tate Modern bookstore unearthing two more book on computational fabric design (a bit more tangential) and one on computation in fabrics and fashion. More on those as I read them.

Massage Me

Check out Hannah Perner-Wilson's work at http://www.plusea.at/ as well as the KOBAKANT collaboration between Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson posted at www.kobakant.at for some interesting takes on computational textiles like the "Massage Me" work pictured here.

The collaboration explores the realm of wearable technology as a medium for commenting on technological and social aspects. KOBAKANT believes in the spirit of humoring technology, maintaining a twisted criticism toward the stereotypes it creates. Technology is to be hacked, DIYed and modified by everyone to fit our needs and desires.

Thanks to Leslie Sharpe at Indiana University who turned us on to this work!