Brady, in (O’Reilly Radar), describes it this way:
Social Sewing networks a regular sewing machine to become an ambient awareness device. This project was built for a single person, a team member’s grandmother. The grandmother has retired from a job as a seamstress and missed sewing in the company of her co-workers. So the team created small, networked porcelain sewing machines that had a needle and a wheel that would represent her sewing friends. These “avatars” would move their needle and wheel when the real sewing machine was being used. Apparently the women can tell what the other one’s are making just by the avatar.
The simplicity and completeness of this project was quite striking. I could definitely see those physical avatars making me feel less alone. It was kind of like the Nabaztag for the sewing set.
