I had kind of given up on last year’s attempt to make a coat covered in swirly bright LEDs. We made the coats, but they were way, way, way too heavy to be usable. The coats themselves were pleather & (fake) fur, so they were hot. Then 200 pixels, a 6-lbs battery, and very fragile wiring made them unusable.
Try again! Adafruit’s NeoPixels are sewable and designed for wearable applications. I got to thinking: hmm, what if only 60 pixels? What if the pixels were all together (making layout simpler)? What if we just run super-simple patterns? Ok, back at it. 
I found an Australian cattle-driver’s coat at a school rummage sale in Vermont, and my friend the experimental seamstress laid out a nice pattern (see photo and diagram).
More images as we finalize the power and ground bus and the wiring.
Wylbur's Inner Geek 