My original plan centered on using weft floats to hide different components in the yarn. I don't think this ended up working very well, because the warp floats also showed up and were messy-olooking, and the weave felt structurally comprimised in this way. I don't think I succeeded at making the electronics really hidden or useful. This path could have potentially worked, but I think simply making double layer pockets would have worked better, and been more controlled and neater.

I became curious about the posibilities of hiding monofilament in a weaving so that light could be shone through in a surprising way. I tried cut pieces with inlay against a tabby weave, and then I tried creating loops of monofilament with inlay against a tabby weave of thicker yarn. The cut pieces against the black tabby showed up really well, but the loops did not, likely because the light shines best at the ends of the monofilament.

The monofilament against black tabby would have been surprising with light showing through had the cut ends not stuck out, but they actually showed dots of llight at the ends, making it like a fiber optic cable.

This next swatch incorporated both loops and cut pieces in greater density. However, I found that the lighter yarn I used showed the light more strongly and therefore overpowered the monofilament light. The loops did show up a little, and had a glow to them when shown in front of colored light.

While this path was interesting, I really wanted to incorporate some kind of electronic system into my final project, so I moved on to a new path.

I created a ~12 inch textile with 5 electrodes. The electrodes are made of stripped silicone wire and are divided into an upper section (4 electrodes) and a lower section (1 electrode). The wire is floated over the main tabby weave, and each electrode in the upper section begins as soon as the previous one stops. Both ends of the wire for each electrode is twisted together and attached to an alligator clip. There is a ~4 inch section of tabby between the sections. On the back, I added a single weft float behind each electrode. The idea with this was to create finger loops so that a person could hold the controller more easily.

After my first test, I was really happy that the controller worked. However, I wanted to improve the wearability of it, as well as the visual appeal and potentially the technique for integrating the silicone wire. I did a small test first, creating two electrodes with two different techniques. One was looping, the other was simple floats. I also wove with two separate colors, separating them completely so as to create fingerlike sections in the weaving. I learned that looping does not work very well, because the wire is stiff and doesn't create loops in a stable way. The loops end up being uneven and I think using this technique for all the electrodes might cause the loops to miss each other, not ensuring a good connection.

My plan for this final piece was to use a different color for each upper electrode to keep them separated both physically and visually. The physical separation allowed the sections to be close together without the wires touching accidentally. I used floats that only wrapped around at the last warp ends of each finger section, because this gave the cleanest and largest area of conductivity. Each of these sections was made up of 8 warp ends. The lower section is made with black yarn, and only uses 12 warp ends, centered in the middle of the weaving. The lower and upper sections are disconnected so that the grounding end can be held more easily.

The most interesting part of this swatch is that I accidentally created a structure with a lot of alternative configurations as an alternative controller. Instead of just being used on the fingers, the finger section could be bent into a circle and the thumb can be placed inside the circle, making a strange kind of joystick. Or, the circle of electrodes could be placed around a thumb while the thumb section is held like a remote. the fingers could also be detached from one another and be placed anywhere on a body or in an environment, making soft but secure conductive connections with the grounding pad.