Brief history and potential future of knitting from Gizmodo:

Advanced knitting offers something past seamlessness approaching invisibility. Not only does it enable clothing makers to hide hard electronics, it even lets them create electrical components from the actual yarn—sensors that are an integral part of the garment and not tucked in or laminated on top.

For example, a knit machine programmer can create a small “patch” of conductive yarn, stack a non-conductive above it, and then another conductive patch on top of that to make a sandwich. As the two conductive sections get closer together, they make more and more contact through the non-conductive but porous sandwich “filling.” This increased conductivity can be measured by a microchip to create a pressure sensor which, when built into a sock, could measure stride and footfall for runners or balance indicators in elderly patients who are prone to falling.

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