Bridget McKendry

Textile designer Bridget McKendry has turned her passion for traditional crafts into a career in hi-tech digital fabrication. From an early age she learned about textiles from rural spinners and weavers; eventually, she studied textile design at Otago Polytechnic. In 1994, when Bridget was introduced to the Internet, she recognised that pixel art for designing icons was no different to textile design, and electronics was no longer a separate thing from craft. Inspired by Leah Beuchley's work at MIT, Bridget began experimenting with designing eTextiles circuits using conductive thread. She found sewing and textiles to be a far more engaging context for some people to learn about electronics, and developed teaching resources for workshops. Bridget spoke at FAB8 2012, the annual conference of the MIT Fab Lab network, and is currently co-director of Fabriko, a social enterprise set up to make fabrication technology accessible to all learners.