Tote Bag With Adafruit Circuit Playground Expressed Flower Design

For my wearable tech project, I want to share how I sewed this tote bag with a flower design attached to the Adafruit Circuit Playground Expressed. I will also show you a tutorial on how I code Dice where the circuit lights up and make a fun melody when you shake it.

Supplies

• FABRIC FOR TOTE BAG

one large rectangle 38 cm x 96 cm
two strips for the straps 7.5 cm x 53 cm
one small rectangle for front pocket 17cm x 20cm

• CRAFT FELTS FOR FLOWER AND LEAVES

three shades of pink felt
two shades of green felt

• EMBROIDERY NEEDLE AND THREAD

green thread (to match leaves and stem)
blue thread (or whatever color that matches your tote bag)
pink thread (to match the flowers)

• CIRCUIT PLAYGROUND EXPRESSED

laptop to code
Code your project here: https://makecode.adafruit.com/
Dice tutorial here: https://makecode.adafruit.com/examples/dice

Sew Your Tote Bag

Take your large rectangle fabric (38 cm x 96 cm) and fold it in half. Sew the two sides of the bag together with a 1cm seam allowance. Fold the top opening of the bag 1 cm over, iron it to keep it in place, and fold it 1cm over again. Sew the hem together. The base of your bag is complete!

Now for the straps, fold the 2 longer bottom edge of the 7.5 cm x 53 cm fabric by less than 1 cm and iron it in place. Then fold the two straps in half and iron them. Sew the long opening of the straps shut including the two small opening holes from the top and bottom. Sew the straps onto your tote bag, making sure that both sides are symmetrical and even. I tend to just eyeball this part, but you can measure if you'd like more precision.

The last part to complete the tote bag is the outside pocket. Take your small rectangle fabric (17cm x 20cm), and hem all four sides just like how you hem the sides of your bag previously. To attach the pocket I embroidered three sides (using a straight stitch) of the pocket onto the bag leaving the top open for the opening of the pocket. This does require a lot of time, so if you find sewing the pocket on to be more efficient then you can do that too.

Your bag should be done!

Code Your Circuit

To code your Circuit, you should go to this link https://makecode.adafruit.com/ and start a new project. Use this link https://makecode.adafruit.com/examples/dice and code the image. The code is also displayed in the image above. Then click the pink Download button. Take the USB cable you connected to your computer. Plug it into your Circuit Playground Express. Press the RESET button to go into programming mode. When the lights turn green, you're ready to go. Click and drag the file you downloaded onto CPLAYBOOT. Your circuit should have the code memorized, connect the circuit to the black and red wire of the battery pack, and start playing around! It should light up and make noises when shaken like a dice.

Embroider Your Flower and Attach Circuit

Take your three pink craft felt and cut it into three sizes, small, medium, and large. Make sure the diameter of the flower (not counting the petals) fits the diameter of the circuit so that when the circuit is placed on top of the flower, only the petals show on the sides. Stack the three flowers together and embroider a small x in the center so all flowers stay together. The x will be covered by the circuit on top. Using the holes surrounding the circuit, embroider the circuit onto the flower and through the front of the bag.

For the leaves use two shades of green felt and cut out 4 leaves, 2 of them are bigger and 2 are smaller. Place the smaller leaves on top of the big leaves and embroider them together. Then sew them on the bag.

The last part is the stem. The stem is going to be the black and red wire from the battery pack. You need somewhat of a thick green embroidery thread and wrap the thread around the wires. Make sure to make knots through the wires so the thread doesn't come off loose.

Now your bag is finally complete

Additional Tips

• Choosing the right fabric

When choosing fabric for the tote bag, I recommend using a thin fabric like canvas or cotton that slightly holds its shape/structure and can still be easily hand-sewn. I used curtains as my fabric to upcycle old materials and that came with a lot of difficulties, especially with embroidering.

• Embroidering

I recommend practicing embroidery and sewing basic stitches before trying this project. This tutorial only contains straight stitches for the most part but when the fabric doesn't hold, sometimes you need other types of stitches like back stitch, blanket stitch, etc. You can also elevate the look of your bag with cooler stitching patterns like split stitch, satin stitch, and more.

• Circuit Playground

I recommend playing around with coding and following tutorials on YouTube on the Cỉcuit Playground Expressed before this project. This tutorial doesn't go too in-depth with the circuit, and it won't be as easy to understand if you're working with Circuit Playground Express for the first time. If you'd like to code something easy and cool other than Dice you can do: