Materials
» Conductive thread
» Griffin RF (radio frequency) remote
control Any model will do.
» Soldering iron and solder
» Sewing machine, thread, pins,
and needles
» Fabric ( 3 varieties) floral print, plain
colored, and white muslin
» Hook and eye fasteners, size 0
» Snap fastener
» Velcro
» Sticky-back fusible web
» Cotton or polyester stuffing
» Conductive metal tape found at
hardware stores in the plumbing
section
» ¼"-thick foam tape found at
hardware stores
» Permanent or fabric marker
switched on. The switch has 3 contacts: 1 for “on,”
1 for “hold,” and 1 shared contact that connects to
either “on” or “hold” via the switch. Push the switch
into the “hold” position (toward the top of the remote
control) and solder 1 eye to the “on” contact and 1 to
the shared contact. (We won’t connect to the “hold”
contact since the bear doesn’t use this functional-ity.) It’s important to arrange the eye fasteners so
that the conductive threads won’t cross.
2. Sew a circuit.
Draw a pattern on a piece of paper for a bear body,
arms, and legs, about ¾" larger than you want the
finished bear. Cut out your fabric pieces using your
patterns, and cut out the muslin fabric in the same
shape as the body. Design a face and use the fusible
web to attach it to the front of the bear.
Place your remote control circuit board on top of
the piece of muslin in a strategic position such as
the bear’s armpit, for access to the battery. On the
muslin, mark where the buttons will go. Tie a piece
of conductive thread to an eye fastener on the circuit board and then sew it across the muslin to the
button location. Doubling the thread ensures that
if one breaks, the other will still make the button
function. Repeat for each side of each button and
the on/hold switch. Leave plenty of extra thread for
the switch since it will go to the bear’s arms.
Using the fusible web, attach the muslin to the
back of the front piece of the bear (Figure B). The
fusible web makes the fabric stiffer, so attach only
a few points on the muslin to the front piece to hold
them together, and keep the threads from crossing.
After the muslin circuit has been attached, mark
on the front where the buttons should be placed.
At each button location, place 2 rectangles of
conductive tape, 1 for each connecting side of the
circuit, about
5" apart (Figure C). Then stitch each
conductive thread over its piece of tape so that the
thread touches the conductive part of the tape. The
threads for the on/hold switch don’t need to be
attached to anything for now, but be careful not to
cross them as this will drain the battery.
TOP OF REMOTE
Vol - Trac/Rev Play/Pause
Hold switch Vol + Trac/End
1. Solder fasteners to the remote.
Carefully disassemble the remote control (Figure A,
on next page). The circuit board is nicely labeled
and has 5 buttons and a hold switch (see the shiny
circles above). You’ll need to solder the eye fasteners
onto the circuit board as shown in the image above,
so the thread can be tied to something. The right
half of each button dot provides its power and the
left half connects to its specific function, so any
right half can be connected to the left half to
activate that function.
The on/hold switch is a bit trickier. When the arms
of the bear are snapped together, the remote will be
3. Make buttons.
To make the sewn button icons, draw the designs
on paper with pencil, rub them onto the fabric, then
darken them with a marking pen. Sew the outlines,
then fill in by hand-sewing and using a permanent
marker to fix mistakes (Figure E).
