Skirt Full of Stars - Motion reactive skirt with fiber optics

Step 6 Create the accelerometer attachment / acceleromegranate

Creating a freely hanging attachment for the accelerometer allows it to move more in each direction, making for a more interesting play of colors. I used some reclaimed purple suede I had left from another project, and the purple circle with the curved lines of stitching ended up reminding me of a pomegranate, so I dubbed this component the acceleromegranate.

Cut a circle about 2″ across from a non-fraying fabric – the lilypad mainboard is a great size to trace for this.

Place your lilypad accelerometer towards the bottom of the circle so that the arrow printed for Y is pointed away from you. Use a pen to lightly mark the holes and petal edges on your fabric.

Line up your short ribbon cable so that it connects at the top of the circle and points away from you (parallel with the arrow printed for Y). Secure the end of the ribbon to the edge of the circle with a few stitches of normal thread.

Sew the traces on the ribbon to the connection petals on the accelerometer, in the following order (left to right): -, +, X, Y, Z. If you left long thread ends when creating your ribbon cable, you can simply use those to sew the connection. If your thread tails are too short for that you can simply knot a new piece of thread to the old, but take care not to let the knots touch another trace as that could cause a short circuit.

To connect a conductive thread trace to the lilypad connection petal, simply sew the petal down with a couple of stitches of the conductive thread and knot on the back side of the piece. Clip thread ends short - to help keep the conductive thread ends neat, I like to put a tiny dot of fray-check or fabric glue on my thread after I've knotted it and then cut through the glue.