Wired Article – Open Source Embroidery
The Open Source Embroidery exhibition is now open at Umeå University’s Bildmuseet. After the show is over there, it’ll be traveling to the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco (October 2009). Wired.com interviewed me in an article about the exhibit and movement.
An online editor for the Craft and Make magazines, Becky Stern is deeply involved in the DIY community. Stern took her love for programming and crafts and meshed it into an embroidered piece that puts a microcontroller board called the LilyPad Arduino at its center.
The LilyPad is a microcontroller board that can be sewn to fabric with conductive thread. The board was designed and developed by Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics and it was an idea that fascinated Stern.
Stern took the board and embroidered it into a floral pattern. She added lights and sounds activated by sensors and the microcontroller software. Moving your hand over the piece results in changes in light and sounds generated from the fabric.
I saw the exhibition yesterday, i liked it alot, but they were closing so I didn’t have time to see and read everything, for example I only saw part of the ada documentary, but maybe I can find it somewhere on the net.
I came here from the article in Wired. I was struck by the similarities between your Lilypad piece and one my girlfriend made a few years ago called “See Sound”. It has been exhibited at the Festival Of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham, and I think also at some other shows throughout the UK. I thought you might be interested:
http://ferfab.co.uk/portfolio/showpic.php?dir=quilts&name=see_sound.jpg
I just love this so much I keep coming back to it all the time.. Love, I mean real love…
fabulous work!