Glowing Badge

Make Detachable Parts

You can also extend your badge circuit so that separate pieces of felt with their own LEDs (of the same type) can be joined to it to make them light up!

First you will need another badge. This one will not have a battery of its own. But without a battery, where will the threads go?

  • When you sew your LED onto this new badge, do the running stitches all the way to the edge of the felt, or near the edge. Remember to keep the positive and negative threads separate from each other!

  • Then sew several medium-sized stitches next to each other or criss-crossing over each other. You want to make it look like a “blob” of conductive thread on the felt.

  • Finish the stitching as normal by doing three tiny stitches in one spot before cutting the thread short.

  • Once you have one blob for the negative, and one blob for the positive side, the new badge is ready. If you want, you can repeat these steps so that you extend the circuit to another pair of blobs at the opposite edge of the new badge, like this:

  • Now you just need to extend the circuit on the main badge (the one with the battery). Remember to remove the battery from the holder first.

  • Decide where you want to the badges to join together. You will be sewing stitches from the LED on the main badge to this point, so make sure you can trace a line from the + to the positive blob and from the – to the negative blob without the lines crossing.

  • Mark two spots on the main badge where the positive and negative blobs touch it. You are going to sew matching blobs here for them to connect to. You can put the new badge to one side for the next bit.

  • Taking new thread and the main badge, sew a bunch of stitches at the spot you marked for the negative blob. Then sew a running stitch all the way to the LED on this badge and secure it to the – hole. Repeat this process to make a positive blob that is connected to the + hole of the same LED. When you are done it should look something like this:

Your badges are ready to be joined together!

  • Pop the battery back into its holder. Place the new badge onto the main badge so the blobs touch each other. Remember to match up + to + and – to –. You should see the new badge suddenly light up!


Challenge: Make a soft switch

  • You could use this technique to make a simple soft switch on your project. For example, put a positive blob each at either end of a bracelet, so the two come in contact when you close it.
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