Creating Stylish Conductive Fabric*

Conductive fabric is a fabulous product for eTextile design, but it is not always aesthetically pleasing.
This is a method of creating your own conductive fabric from fusible fibers that will compliment your design project.

I was sent some thread samples that were unable to be used in a sewing machine or by hand sewing.  The samples also has a resistance that was to high to be useful for eTextiles.  So, I made a new eTextile fabric that solves a design problem I was having while using up supplies in my studio.

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conductive fibers - I used Shieldex 235/34 that came with my thread samples.
Angelina Fibers
paper
iron
multimeter

Place a piece of paper on surface you can iron on.
Spread a thin layer of Angelina Fibers on the paper.
'Shred' your conductive thread into fibers - I used 10 strands 15" long.
Place conductive fibers on top of the Angelina Fibers.
Place another layer of Angelina Fibers on top of the conductive fibers.

Repeat layers until you have the fabric and conductivity that you require for your project.

For this example I used four layers of conductive fiber and five layers of Angelina Fiber.
Each layer is 10 15" strands.

Place another piece of paper on top of your fibers.
With a warm iron fuse the fibers together.
Keep the iron moving.
Flip the paper and iron from the other side.
Once cooled, peel the paper from the fibers.

Test the fabric with a multimeter.

For my examples:
Conductive stainless steel thread on its own: 4 ohms.
The same stainless steel thread preserved as single strands in the Angelina Fibers: 5 ohms.
Fiberous conductive thread taught and loose: 145 ohms and 250 ohms respectively.
Fiberous conductive thread fused with Angelina Fibers: 5 ohms.

It is possible to vary the amount of non-conductive fibers with conductive fibers resulting in one side of the fabric being conductive and the other non-conductive.