Fermentation Quilt (2020)
Fermentation Quilt is a cloth equipped with soft heaters along with thoughtful textile structures that offers a user the chance to think about their personal heritage and cultural context while participating in a daily ritual of making bread, yogurt, or other fermented foods.
Created in collaboration with Petar Sapundjiev; With support from Loomia.
Inspiration
Inspired by the traditional Bulgarian yogurt Petar’s grandmother Катя Kаишева (and many great grandmothers before her) made using hand-knit scarves, Fermentation Quilt is both a futuristic object and a mirror for personal narrative and cultural history. In the wake of pivotal, current movements like Black Lives Matter and Environmental Sustainability when we are all asking, “how can I be a more thoughtful neighbor and consumer?”, this project weaves together the practical application of Loomia e-textiles with a framework for actively incorporating reflection into our everyday lives. We are inspired by artists and thinkers like Ashley Jane Lewis, Lauren Fournier, Shaina Agbayani, Robin Zabiegalski, and Ursula K. LeGuin along with social movements like the American Suffragettes and others.
Process
More information: Instructables
The "Fermentation Quilt" project combines textiles and electronics to create a quilted fabric equipped with heaters, used for fermenting yogurt. The process involved designing the quilt, sewing fabric with conductive thread, integrating temperature sensors, and programming the LilyPad microcontroller to maintain optimal fermentation temperatures.
Iteration 1
The first iteration of this project was shared virtually and in-person during community events hosted in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2020.
