February 2025 In-Person Workshop | Kevin Roche: Lights! Fabric! Action!

Description

Kevin Roche: Lights, Fabric, Action! Add lighting accents to your work

An in-person workshop plus simulcast (will be recorded) An introduction to adding illumination and animation to your projects. The options for adding light and animation to wearables and accessories have multiplied incredibly over the last decade. I will begin with a brief overview of the types of illumination one can add to a project, with some notes on pros and cons for each. The rest of the workshop will focus on a simple illumination project, adding flexible LED strip lighting to a garment, hat, or other project. Pre-assembled kits will be available for advance order only, and a parts shopping list and assembly instructions will be provided for students willing to solder their own.   Location Saratoga Senior Center $65/$45 members

What to bring:

• Your favorite hand-sewing needle(s) and thread: invisible, white or black as appropriate
• an item to embellish with a ribbon of light: a hat, basket, jacket, or something else
  note that the light strips are slightly springy, so a project made of very lightweight fabric may pose challenges.

Lighting kit options for the workshop:

Pre-assembled LED strip kits will be available at a kit charge of $30, payable at the workshop.
Sorry, Kevin cannot build and mail the kits out in time for the workshop, so if you will be watching remotely please select the “NO Kit Wanted” option.
Each Kit will include 1/2 meter (~20″) of one of two styles of glowing LED strip: Ribbon style, which looks like a 3/8″ wide glowing ribbon when switched on, or Piping style, which is a 3/8″ wide strip which glows along one edge, more like piping or neon.
The kit will be pre-soldered with about 3 feet of cable ending in a USB-A style plug you can use with almost any USB power pack or charger.
Please indicate your preference for the kit style before adding the workshop to your cart. 
Kit fees are to be paid to the instructor at the workshop.
Orders placed after Jan 7 Jan 12 or with no preference will be built from available inventory, and will probably be cool-white ribbon style.
NOTE: Extended to Jan 12!

Ribbon style LED strip

As you can see in the illustration, this kind of strip is flat and lights up across its width like a glowing ribbon

Piping style LED strip

This kind of strip is the same width, but most of the light comes out of one edge of the strip. This is more like piping, and can be tucked into a fold to create the effect of a thin neon tube. Note that you cannot stitch through the strip like actual piping. It must be tucked into a fold or between layers of fabric so just the edge is exposed if you wish to hide the wider portion.