Introduction: Light Your Scarf Up With LED Fairy Wire!
Hi Everyone!
This tutorial will walk you through knitting a scarf, embedding LED fairy wire into the scarf, and creating an on and off switch to make the scarf glow!
Materials Needed:
-1 ball of yarn
-knitting needles
-yarn needle
-scissors
-solder
-22 ohm resistor
-coin cell battery holder
-3v coin cell battery
-conductive thread
-copper fabric (or another conductive fabric)
-LED fairy wire
All of the tech materials can be found in the blink blink starter kit at www.blinkblink.cc!
Step 1: Knit Your Circle Scarf!
Follow this video for visual instructions!
1. If you're yarn is not rolled up into a ball, go ahead and roll the yarn into a ball. Make sure there are no tangles or knots in the yarn.
2. Make a slip knot at one end of the ball of yarn, keeping a foot of yarn at one end as the "yarn tail."
3. Stick one needle through the knot and pull tightly.
4. Make sure the yarn tail is to the left of the knitting needle and the ball of yarn is to the right.
5. Cast on your first row which will be the thickness of your scarf. 16 is a great number to begin with. Whichever number you do choose, make sure it is a multiple of four.
6. Make two knit stitches followed by two purl stitches.
7. Repeat this pattern until you get to the end of the yarn.
8. Cast off by making two new stitches and then pulling the lower stitch over the top stitch. Repeat this until the you have finished the entire row.
9. Use a string of yarn and the sewing needle to stitch the two ends of the scarf together.
Step 2: Solder the End of the LED Fairy Wire and the Resistor to the Battery Holder!
1. Find the negative and positive legs.
*Each LED on the fairy wire has a green mark on one edge. This side indicates the negative leg of the LEDs. See drawing for clarification.
2. Solder the 22 ohm resistor to the positive leg of the fairy wary.
3. Solder the resistor to the appropriate side of the coin cell battery holder. See image for clarification.
**DO NOT solder anything to the negative leg of the fairy wire. We are going to use this path to create a switch.
Step 3: Weave the Fairy Wire Through the Scarf!
1. Untangle your fairy wire and make sure there are no knots.
2. Find the middle point of the fairy wire, and use a cylindrical shaped object to wrap one end around it.
*The fairy wire can be very long, so I found that I didn't need the other half. If that's the case for you as well, just cut that end off and use the rest of that fairy wire for another project or another scarf!
3. User the other end of the fairy wire to weave through your scarf in any pattern you wish. I chose to randomly scatter the LEDs to make my scarf look like the night sky!
4. Once you are done weaving the fairy wire through, you may notice a lot of silver wire showing. If you do not like this aesthetic, use a sewing needle for yarn and disguise this wire by stitching yarn over and under it.
Step 4: Make the Switch!
We don't want the scarf to always glow to save our battery, so let's make a switch with conductive thread and copper fabric.
1. Cut out two squares of copper fabric.
2. Cut a a couple of inches of conductive thread.
3. Solder one square of copper fabric directly to the negative side of the fairy wire. See images and diagram for clarification.
4. Knot the conductive thread to the negative side of the battery holder.
5. And stitch the other end of the conductive thread through the second square of copper fabric.
6. To turn the LED fairy wire on, make the two squares touch. To keep the switch on, I used yarn to tie the two pieces together. You can also use a safety pin.
You've now created a switch that can turn the lights on and off.
If you're unsure about the switch, try following the steps but instead of soldering, use alligator clips to prototype.
Step 5: Stitch the Battery Holder in Place!
To make sure the battery doesn't fall off or bother you while you are wearing the scarf, use the sewing needle for yarn to stitch the holder into place as seen in the image.
Step 6: Put the Scarf On!
Feel safer walking home in the dark with your new DIY light up scarf!