To sew traditional components one must make them into sewable buttons. Using needle-nosed players, bend the leads of the components into little sewable loops, then sew them down with at least three stitches of conductive thread.

If the component will be under physical pressure, reinforce the conductive thread stitches with normal thread, which is stronger.

For diodes and other components with a polarity, bend the negative lead into a square, and the positive lead into a circle. This allows you to tell them apart easily after they are bent.

LEDs have a longer positive lead, and a flat bit on the plastic edge on the negative side.

(This wise idea by Becky Stern. Make your own convention and stick with it!)

Materials: 2 squares of felt (smaller than the battery), 1 small square of fabric (larger than the battery) and the project to which the battery pack will be attached. Conductive fabric optional.

Using the conductive thread, sew one small square of felt down to your project, making lots of zig zags that are less than the width of the battery.

If you have conductive fabric, you can use a little patch of that instead of thread zig zags. Stitch conductive thread in the conductive fabric to go to the rest of the circuit.

The felt isn't strictly necessary, but it helps the electrical contact by raising the conductive material, increasing the squeeze on the battery. The point is to make a nice place for the battery to make contact.

With a new trace of conductive thread (or a new piece of conductive fabric), sew the other piece of felt to the small square which will be the battery pouch in the same manner: try to make lots of space for electrical contact with your battery.

Align the two patches, and sew up 3 sides to create a pocket. This is easier on an embroidery hoop.

The tighter you sew the pocket, the better the electrical connections will be. Sometimes my battery packs act as buttons too -- you have to push them to make the electricity flow.

Materials: conductive thread, felt, fabric.

Cut a small (finger-tip-sized) hole in the center of a piece of felt.

Using conductive thread, sew a zig-zag on your bottom layer of fabric slightly larger than the hole, and another zig-zag on the top piece of fabric. Or, use traces of conductive fabric instead of zig-zags.

Align the traces over the doughnut hole. Sew to the rest of the circuit, being careful the two conductive thread pieces won't touch without being pushed.

Stitch around the outside of the button to hold all the pieces in place, using normal thread.

Ta da! A soft push-button which can be added to any circuit.

Use more layers of felt doughnuts for a less sensitive button.

• Scissors
• Needle-nose pliers
• Sewing needle
• Embroidery hoop
• Normal thread
• Conductive thread
• 3V coin cell battery
• 2 pieces of felt (smaller than battery)
• Fabric square for battery pouch
• Fabric to sew onto
• 1 LED with forward voltage less than 3V
• Fabric glue (optional, not shown)

Using the pliers, bend the LED's leads into sewable loops.

Sew one side of a coin cell battery case onto your large piece of fabric.

Then, stitch over to one side of your LED and sew it down with at least 3 stitches. Tie the end, cut the thread, and put a drop of glue on the knot to keep it secure.

Sew with conductive thread from the top of the battery pouch to the other lead of the LED, making sure not to touch your first trace (this would cause a short circuit!). Knot and cut your thread.

Note: because our 3V coin cell battery can't supply much current, we don't need to worry about burning out the LED or using a resistor here.

Before going any further, put the battery between the two pieces of felt and see if your light turns on. If it doesn't work, flip the battery around. If it still doesn't work, check you aren't short circuiting somewhere!

In this view, I've opened the upper flap of the battery pack. Note how the two pieces of conductive thread, one for each side of the circuit, are not touching anywhere!

Got it to light up? Great! Now, sew around 3 sides of the battery pouch with normal thread so that you can remove and replace the coin cell battery.

In this example, the battery slips in to the pocket from the left.

I got my multimeter from Newark.com, an electronics supply company. This one was $28, which is enough to get a good digital multimeter.

This multimeter came with the normal leads, but also alligator clips (useful) and temperature sensors (neat). It also came with a battery, which I appreciated.

Multimeters have several ports where you can plug in the leads. The black/ground always goes in COM, and the red/power moves around. You move the power to mA for measuring small currents, and to 20A max for large currents. If you don't do this right, it can blow the fuse in the multimeter!

Always check you have the red plugged into the correct port before turning on the multimeter and your circuit.

When measuring stuff, you have to turn the dial to tell the multimeter what you want to measure. For voltage and current you can choose between AC (alternating current, ~) and DC (direct current,  —). Batteries supply direct current, while your wall supplies alternating.

You always put the dial at a number that is greater than or equal to the value you expect. If I want to measure a 9 volt battery (left), I turn the dial to V, 20. If I set it to 2, I won't be able to see the voltage (off the charts!), while if I set it to 200, there won't be enough accuracy to tell me exactly the right number.

To measure voltage, you put the leads across the component (in parallel with the component). To the left I measure the voltage of a 9 volt battery -- at 8.99 volts it seems pretty charged!

What happens to two resistors in parallel? The resistance halves! Two 100 ohm resistors in parallel are measured to the left.

You can remember this because it is like having two 'pipes' for the electrons to flow through -- more space for flowing is sort of like a bigger pipe.

Resistance is measured by the voltage drop from the red to black lead: V=IR all the way!

My favorite setting on a multimeter is the connectivity setting. You can touch the two leads to anything, and if the multimeter beeps than they are electrically connected with very low to no resistance. A wire, a piece of metal, a cup of salty water, a tongue -- all these things make the meter beep!

This connectivity setting is also the 'diode test' setting. Here I test an LED by hooking it up to the leads and switching the multimeter to diode test/connectivity. I'm not sure what the number displayed on the screen means, but then I haven't read the manual.

I believe connectivity is tested just by sending a little current through the leads.