Last year I taught about 80 kids how to make the LED wearables. The results are always a lot of fun, but the road to get there can be challenging. The netting is just very difficult to work with, and gets stuck in the sewing machine most of the time. I tried supporting it with paper, and that helped a little, but removing the paper after sewing everything together was another drama.

So for an upcoming workshop I decided to try something new. For another project I started using felt, and it was so easy to work with compared to the netting. You can use chalk to mark your cutting and sewing pattern, and it never pulls into the sewing machine.

And the results are remarkable! See some of the pictures below:

The black behind the netting gives a colored dark border seen when the wearable is turned off. The back looks very clean and the black zipper blends in:

But it looks really great when it turns on. I really like the darker edges:

Hopefully this next workshop will go smooth! I will update the instructions with the feedback I will gather.