For this project I made the circuit first. Which is something I always find very relaxing. After making the circuit I moved on to making the traces to test the resistance of the different threads we had access to. I made two traces using the steel thread, I was interested to see exactly how much resistivity it has. Below is a video of me testing my traces with one of the swatches in Liza’s kit.
After seeing how small the traces would have to be to use steel thread I decided to use copper thread for the small piece I wanted to make. Chain stitching is a type of embroidery I’ve always wanted to make so I decided it would be interesting to play with the traditional soft look of embroidery. I embroidered my name in copper thread using a chain stitch.
I tested the resistance and it was consistently around 3.5 ohms. I used a li-po battery to power my heating element and I wanted to test with the same swatch I’d been using before moving on to creating a thermochromic swatch of my own. This is where I ran into issues.
It turns out the the embroidery is too close together for it to appear clearly in thermochromic ink! To make this work better I would have to create a new embroidery on a much larger scale, given how long this smaller sample took I didn’t have time for that. I did still create a version of the thermochromic painting that I would have liked to use. I think I may have applied too much for the paint onto the velum paper because I had to use a 9 volt battery to get even my small tracing to appear.
All in all I really enjoyed learning how to do the embroidery and the thermochromic ink is quite very fun even if a little temperamental in the hands of someone who is not experienced in its use.