Switch Craft

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Switch Craft by Alison Lewis with Fang-Yu Lin is positively delightful, and not just because many patterns use battery power to illuminate clothing. The projects in Switch Craft range from a pillow with a sewn-in mobile headset for comfortable late-night chats to a laptop bag that lights up in the presence of Wi-Fi. The patterns are geared toward all skill levels and the fashion is trendy, reflecting the planned obsolescence of the gadgets they utilize. A newsboy cap with a felt flower that hides the controls to an iPod Shuffle is cute on its own, but add technology and it's a perfect addition to a proper metro-riding, urban fashionista's wardrobe. Catch Me If You Can foils thieves with a foil-lined passport pouch that disrupts new passports' radio chips, which transmit personal information. The authors touch on the implications of the tracking technology, explaining that these same radio-frequency identification tags are used in Prada's SoHo store to match accessories to shoppers' outfits. The Gadget Gloves pattern links our biology to current technology and solves the conundrum of personal media and cold days. "The human body, including the fingers, is actually conductive and stores electrons. This electron-storing ability is called capacitance. Most touchpads and touch screens used in the latest gadgets work by creating a capacitance field on their surface. The field gets distorted whenever your finger touches it?this is not possible when you have thick gloves on. The conductive thread that we added to the Gadget Gloves eliminates the problem." Reflecting our wired world with hip DIY style and patterns, Switch Craft shines a light on the latest crop of crafting books.