Hello Internet! And welcome to another CRAFT Video.
I'm Becky Stern, and today I'm going to show you another soft circuit project that'll have
your shoes customized, ruffled, and all twinkly.
You'll need a pair of LED sewing kits you can get from the Maker Shed, as well as some
standard sewing supplies and a pair of paper clips.
The first thing you'll do is cut out 16 identical circles out of your fabric-- eight for each
shoe. I'm just taking a drinking glass that's about the right diameter- two or two and a
half inches and I'm going to trace it onto my fabric with a pencil.
If the fabric you've chosen is prone to fray, use heat to gently singe the edges of all
sixteen circles.
The basic idea is that each circle gets folded in half twice to form a wedge. The wedges
are then stacked up to form the ruffle. I want the light to radiate from inside the
ruffle, so I'm piercing the centers of two circles with the LEDs. I'll evenly distribute
these illuminated wedges in the ruffle stack.
Be sure both longer positive leads are facing the same side of the stack, and stitch the
fabric in place with plain thread.
Splay the leads out and coil them up with pliers to make them easier to sew. I like
to make the positive leads square coils and the negative leads round coils so I can tell
them apart.
The next step is to make a battery holder which will also hold the ruffle to the shoe.
Cut a matching piece of felt to double over the battery and trim it to be round.
One side of the battery is positive and one side is negative. If I sew two little conductive
thread pads (one on each side of the battery holder), when it wraps around it'll make those
contacts. Then the threads can go off to the LEDs and power them up.
The next step is to attach the LED ruffle to the battery holder. I left the needle threaded
here and on the conductive thread, because I just hate threading needles and would rather
use two needles than thread a needle twice as often.
Stitch the ruffle to the top of the battery holder with plain thread, then connect each
tail of conductive thread to the LEDs. The circuit is the same as my LED embroidery tutorial,
where both positive leads are connected to one thread, and both negatives to the other.
The LEDs are now wired in parallel, where each gets three volts from the battery.
The next step is to stitch your battery holder closed, but before that, I want to make sure
my circuit works. It's easier to fix things while the battery holder is open here. I'm
just going to put the battery the way I think it goes, and there it lights up. If it doesn't
light up immediately, you can try flipping the battery over, meaning you had your positives
and negatives reversed. If it still doesn't light up, bust out your trusty multimeter
and check for any continuity problems or shorts within the conductive thread because they're
very common.
Stitch the battery holder shut with plain thread, leaving a space from which to remove
the battery and insert the paper clip. Just stick one half of the paper clip into the
back of the battery holder and then the other part onto the shoe.
So now I've got a pair of LED shoe clips. These can be great if you want your bridesmaids
to all look the same but be able to wear shoes they already own, you'll definitely get noticed
at a party, and they could even help you find your way in a dark parking lot.
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. If you make a pair of LED shoe clips, I want to see them,
so post a picture to the CRAFT Flickr pool and I'll see you next time.
