By wiring the needle and a conductive piece of fabric, a melody can be played through by sewing through the switch.
Using conductive thread I sew through 2 traces to close a switch that is received and read by a microcontroller and piped into Max/MSP, which is where the sound is triggered.
A test of sewing through fabric traces on muslin with a lilyPad microcontroller receiving the values once closed, and then triggering notes in Max/MSP. Afterwards, they keep triggering and I find they are pretty responsive to action while I stretch and move the fabric
I also have my needle bar mic’ed running through both delay and reverb effects pedal.
From sewing through fabric traces to close switches, notes are triggered in Max/MSP. I disconnect the sound by ripping out the conductive thread. It takes a little more time than it should, you can see me grab the seam ripper and grapple with it a bit