WoW Wearable Tech Workshops | Manchester

By Michelle Hua @MadeWithGlove

After turning our gloves into smart gloves and designing our light up pencil cases, we invited our special WoW women in Manchester to try their hand in creating their own wearable projects.

It felt like a mini factory in our office when we hand made and hand sewed our pencil cases using our trusty sewing machine to design bespoke pencil cases for our WoW Women. It was all worth it when we completed our pretty pencil cases ready for our workshop.

Alice, Shu-Ling, Natalie, Kayley and Vanessa came on a Saturday afternoon where our Wearable Tech assistant, Rachael Yeung led the workshop and taught them how to make smart gloves using conductive thread. It was a bit tricky at first however, we brainstormed together to make it easier and quicker to sew. Before we knew it, success! Everyone grabbed their smart phones and started to use them with their gloves on. The excitement in their faces that a simple piece of thread could turn their gloves smart inspired us to start the more difficult task; the light up pencil cases!

While some were apprehensive about sewing and making their pencil cases light up, we all worked together to ensure the pesky LED lights and conductive thread behaved themselves. The trick was to keep the thread separate because conductive thread is different to normal thread. This is because it conducts electricity which allows the LED to light up so it was very important to sew in a straight line and tying and knotting the thread had to be as precise as a surgeon’s knot! Remembering to put the battery in helped in making them work!

After a few hours, our WoW women were delighted when their pencil cases lit up and for those that didn’t work, we trouble shooted and discovered why they didn’t.

It was a fun learning experience for our WoW women and for us in teaching and sharing our knowledge on how to make your own wearable projects. 

The key takeaway was whether you had a background in sewing or tech or neither, it was a challenging and rewarding experience. The main point of the workshop was to try something completely new and learn something different because you never know what you can achieve.

For our WoW Women, they worked together, made friends, inspired and encouraged each other to believe in themselves to create something that was useful, FUNctional and wearable!

Now that is inspiring!

If you would like more information on our wearable tech workshops in Manchester, the North West or London, contact us at hello@womenofwearables.com or find out more here!