Want to make your knitted clothes fancier using LEDs, yet not looking like a walking Christmas tree?

We have developed this awesome pom-pom that diffuses the light from a LED. By connecting it to a microcontroller (Arduino or AtTiny) you can also have this awesome glow...

The switches are activated using capacitive sensing, and you can program the micro controller to perform several different patterns.

Step 1: Preparing the Pompon

Making a pompon is very easy.

There is an excellent instructable by MichaelDFarmer here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Best-Yarn-Puffballs-Removable-or-Permanent/.

For ours, we used a slightly different technique involving cardboard rings. The results are not much different. The main thing to take into account is not to make the center too tight, so later on we can integrate the LED.

Step 2: Preparing the Electronics

In first place, we need a base for assembling the pins of the chip (ATTiny in the pictures). We will use perforated board with conductive thread and a chip holder with eight pins.

The instructable on how to make a capacitive switch can be found here:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Create-an-Interactive-Living-Wall/step6/Create-the-capacitive-touch-sensor/

We have made a simpler version without MOSFETs, as we only need one 3V battery.

Step 3: Attach the Electronics to the Fabric

Once the micro controller is programmed, we need to attach the battery holder, the LED and the chip holder and connect them. In the picture there is a schematic made on a breadboard for better understanding.

We have 3d printed our battery holder, but you can find them in any electronics shop.