Busy hands | Disquiet mind

There have been a fair few really cool things crossing my path lately that I wish I had time to play with. Here are some of my favourites;

• Conductive paint that's safe for use on skin. I mean, how cool?! Check it out henna'd here. Also works on paper, fabric, walls, anything you can paint; some tutorials.


• Man builds wearable tv, then has trouble getting through an airport (he didn't make it as far as the metal detector). That's 14,400 RGB LEDs. He's a legend to me. Story here.


• Have I mentioned conductive fibres before? Makes me want to start making my own fabrics!


• How about electric cotton? That's with gold nanoparticles and conductive polymers at the strand level, instead of plating with silver. Ever get the feeling you're living in the future?


• *edit* And least you think this is all rather fanciful, Stretchable Circuits is a company that exists to fuse electronics with fashion. Some nice pics, vids, and links to labels selling this stuff :) */edit*


• If you do, and it bothers you, how about CV Dazzle? It's a project based on finding ways of obscuring your identity from face-detection technologies using hairstyles, make-up and other seemingly high-fashion techniques. Pretty interesting, and visually striking!


• If this future thing appeals to you how about an electric sheep? It's a gadget that plugs into your Android phone and then acts like an Arduino, letting you build circuits and gadgets to use with your phone.


• The complete Narnia series is available free to download as audio books; details here.


• Finally if you didn't catch it at 28c3 there is the powerful talk of how anonymising software can save, or cost, lives. "How governments tried to block Tor". You can find the rest of the talks here.

In other news; I tried to get in touch with the winners of my little giveaway, but only one has responded to me. Could mollydot and oh-that-karl [launchpad.net] please get in touch with me? You've won :) I'd like to arrange postage. You can email me chebe at dreamwidth.org. I'll give you a week, but if I can't reach by then I'll have to pick someone else :/ *edit2* Thanks! Will try and get them out soon. */edit2*

Something curious has happened, I've reached 100 non-spammy followers on twitter (chebegeek), and well, 'tis the season, so I thought I'd share some of the fun! I've three small kits to help you get started with electro-textiles. Each kit contains two 2016 coin-cell batteries, ~30ft of conductive thread wrapped around a bobbin that doubles as a Lilypad protoboard, and 25 slow auto-changing RGB LEDs.



You mightn't get them until the new year, but it could be something to look forward to. To enter, simply leave a comment below (before Sunday at midnight GMT, comments are screened) and I'll select three at random. Sound like fun?

Fourth skirt from the 'Sew What! Skirts' book, Short and Sassy (page 73), a simple square (a.k.a. handkerchief) skirt with elasticated waist. ... Well, almost. I added a yoke. I've added yokes before, but this time I was following the 'very simple low-waist skirt block' (page 134) from Winifred Aldrich's 'Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear'. This particular block is good for easy-fits and fabrics with stretch/elastic waists. The only alteration made to the general instructions from 'Sew What! Skirts' (SWS) was that the circle was measured as my hips, and the waistband left out (as the yoke took care of that).

Construction is very straight forward; sew up the side-seams of the yoke, make the elastic casing, insert elastic. Add yoke to skirt (slight gathering may be needed). Hem.

Okay, ready for the maths? Really pretty simple, promise.

( In theory )

Adding yokes or not is simply another variation you can try. There are also other waistband and closure methods that can be used. There are so many possibilities you can make, and all without buying a single pattern!


( In practice )

There we are. A little light twirly skirt perfect for dancing in. And I've learned a lot about how square and circle skirts are made so I'll be able to make the next one perfectly first time. I'm also loving the yoke block based on Aldrich's block and am looking forward to trying the other blocks.

I attended the Knitting & Stitching Show in the RDS this weekend. Actually, in the very hall I had my first and second year college exams. *shiver* It was my first time going, and I went with a mission. One that I unfortunately failed to complete. See, I went looking for fabric, a kind of fabric that doesn't seem to be available in the retail sewing shops around here. And while there was lots of lovely fabric, it was mostly quilting weight cotton. I saw one or two stands with dressmaking fabrics, but sadly none had what I was looking for.

The rest of the hall was full of knitters, embroiderers, jewellery suppliers, machine retailers, and small designers showcasing. Now and again I'd stumble across a stand a little bit unusual, like Colourcraft. More of a general craft suppliers I was surprised to find that they stocked many items I had failed to locate anywhere within reasonable shipping rates. Things like standalone wax pots (originally made for beauty salons, sold for batiking purposes, but which I intend to use for candlemaking), foil transfers, fusible thread, and even Angelina fibre (what do you mean you've never heard of it? To google with you!). Needless to say, I shall be keeping myself busy for the next while. Which isn't hard, as I've been brimming with ideas lately. But powerful all-consuming ideas that have to be written down right now. Which tends to get in the way of actually doing any of them. But I hope to strike the right balance soon.

I got the 'WordPress 3 Complete' book earlier this week, and devoured it in a couple of evenings. Looking forward to setting up an environment to play around and write some things I've been meaning to get done. Ahh php, it's been a while.

Also, I don't think I've mentioned it here before but I'm starting up a reading group, book club kinda thing, very casual style, at tog. Primarily we'll be reading speculative fiction. Some classic sci-fi and cyberpunk books with a maker/hacker ethos, or that look at consequences of new tech. But it will be up to suggestions and majority vote of the group. First meeting is Friday 25th, and we'll be talking about “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. It's my second time reading the book, and I still prefer it to 'Blade Runner' :)

I'm going to ask you for a little indulgence here as I talk about something quite outside my normal topics; make-up. It's okay if you tune out now, don't worry, this is most likely a one-time thing.

( Shall we adjorn to the powder-room? )