I have these lovely Kenwood KPM-310 headphones. Nice, soft, cushy ear pads. Except, they've gotten old and the soft material covering the ear pads is flaking off. It's pretty disgusting. Imagine this flaky black stuff getting all over your ears, flaking off on your clothes, just disintegrating while you're wearing these headphones that were not cheap to begin with. What to do?
So, I'm spending time Googling replacements for these ear pieces, except nobody has anything. I do NOT want to throw away a perfectly good pair of headphones just because the ear pads aren't good anymore. There has to be a solution.
There was. I spent the evening crocheting covers for them. I used Lion Brand Kitchen 100% pure cotton, worsted weight variegated thread. This is the stuff that works well for dish rags. It's soft and because it's cotton I'm hoping it won't make my ears hot & sweaty.
I used an F crochet hook and in the time it took to watch an episode of, "First 48" with my husband I had them made.
Chain 12 and slip stitch the ring together. Chain 1.
Yarn over and work 24 Half Double Crochets into the ring. Slip stitch closed and chain 3.
Working into the back of the stitches (or not, your choice) do a Double Crochet into the same stitch as the turning 3 chain. Work 1 Double Crochet into the next stitch. Work 2 DC's into the next stitch, and 1 into the next. Alternate like that around the ring. Slip stitch into the top of your turning 3 chain. Chain 3 more.
Work 1 Double Crochet into the back of each stitch around. Slip stitch closed and chain 3.
Work two more rows with Double Crochet the same as the first row. Try the cover onto your headphones for size. It can stretch pretty good. Tie it off and leave a nice longish tail.
Fit the cover onto your earpiece. Thread a large eyed needle onto the tail and weave it all around the edge. Pull it tight and tie it off.
Voila.
So, I'm spending time Googling replacements for these ear pieces, except nobody has anything. I do NOT want to throw away a perfectly good pair of headphones just because the ear pads aren't good anymore. There has to be a solution.
There was. I spent the evening crocheting covers for them. I used Lion Brand Kitchen 100% pure cotton, worsted weight variegated thread. This is the stuff that works well for dish rags. It's soft and because it's cotton I'm hoping it won't make my ears hot & sweaty.
I used an F crochet hook and in the time it took to watch an episode of, "First 48" with my husband I had them made.
Chain 12 and slip stitch the ring together. Chain 1.
Yarn over and work 24 Half Double Crochets into the ring. Slip stitch closed and chain 3.
Working into the back of the stitches (or not, your choice) do a Double Crochet into the same stitch as the turning 3 chain. Work 1 Double Crochet into the next stitch. Work 2 DC's into the next stitch, and 1 into the next. Alternate like that around the ring. Slip stitch into the top of your turning 3 chain. Chain 3 more.
Work 1 Double Crochet into the back of each stitch around. Slip stitch closed and chain 3.
Work two more rows with Double Crochet the same as the first row. Try the cover onto your headphones for size. It can stretch pretty good. Tie it off and leave a nice longish tail.
Fit the cover onto your earpiece. Thread a large eyed needle onto the tail and weave it all around the edge. Pull it tight and tie it off.
Voila.
14 comments:
Nice work. I know I've thrown away still good headphones because the ear pads had started falling apart like yours.
Very cool! And you can't beat the price over new headphones LOL! Will remember this for when mine need new pads ....
What a great idea! I've definitely thrown out headphones b/c they covers were gross too.
I've actually got the exact same headphones. I wore them for a year when I worked at a company where I sat in a cubicle farm. I loved them. Now that I work elsewhere, I don't need them anymore. I was thinking about selling them on eBay or donating them. But if you'd be interested in them (just so you can have a spare backup pair) let me know. Just post a random comment to my blog or something. :-)
Those look wonderful! Your post came up when I googled headphone covers for the exact same problem! I might have found some ugly cheap disposable ones with elastic, but the listing I found doesn't even give the measurements. Everything seems to be earbuds these days. I don't feel I could do a good job on the kind you made, so I guess it will be ugly ones for me.
These are soooo cute! I'm asking my mom to make me some for Christmas :)
Hey I just found your pattern yesterday because I have the same problem! I just made some for myself, check it out at my blog!
http://iamcourtleigh.wordpress.com/
excellent points and the details are more specific than somewhere else, thanks.
- Thomas
I need to put a link to this on my Christmas list. I only knew enough crocheting as a 13 year old buy to be weird. Maybe one of my sisters still knows how.
I absolutely love your site.. Great colors & theme.
Did you build this website yourself? Please reply back
as I'm planning to create my very own blog and would love
to know where you got this from or what the theme is named.
Appreciate it!
Also visit my page ...
Hi Anonymous! This is a Blogspot website from Google. Just go to www.blogger.com and you can build your own. The whole process is free. The tools that are available now, in 2015, are superior to the ones I used eight years ago when I first created this site.
I seem to remember using a basic sort of template for this site. What is nice is that you can have a few posts already on the blog and then go switching the template from this to that to something else until you find something that you like. I chose the background color myself. I did make my own picture for the heading. Honestly, I can't remember what programs I used to mesh all the pictures together to make one larger picture. However, since I did that work there are all sorts of on-line free programs to use to do the same thing. Just google it and see.
I think you will have lots of fun making something up.
Oh , Awesome post ! i am seeing here great Headphone Covers ! i highly like it! i want one , what is the way? answer will be helpful for me. Thanks ! :)
Hi Remixingplanet. So glad you saw this post. It has to do with increasing and decreasing with single crochet.
You make a ring of crochet. It's going to depend on how bulky or fine your yarn is. I used the cotton kind you make dish clothes out of, sort of in-between 4 ply and 2 ply yarn. If you were using bulkier yarn I think it would be along the lines of 8 or so single crochet stitches in a ring. I wrap the yarn around my finger 1 and a half times and then just crochet into the ring. Once I've got enough (judge yourself) I pull the ring shut and then just go from there. Usually I'd do about 10 or 12 in the ring or if finer thread another 5 or 6.
The larger the yarn the larger the crochet hook. For 4 ply I'd use anything from an F up to a G or H. Play with it to see how you like the fabric that is produced. The smaller the hook the more tight the fabric will be and the larger the hook the softer the crocheted fabric will be.
Into each of the crochet stitches I crochet 2 in each one. So, say your ring was 10 stitches to begin with it will be 20 once you've gone around the ring again. Some people slip stitch into the top of the last stitch, chain one, and then go around again. I don't. I generally just keep going.
The third round I do one single crochet in the next stitch and then two single crochets in the following stitch, so increase every other stitch. Around again. If you can't figure out whether you've gone the whole way around you can guess. It really doesn't matter with this small a project. Some people mark the last stitch in each round. When I do that I use a piece of contrasting color yarn. Most times I just wing it.
Eventually, you will end up with a flat disk. The larger the disk you want the more times you will increase periodically. Like if you were making a rug you'd be increasing until you got the size of the rug. With headphones, depending on the size of the ear part you will increase until you are happy with the size.
Now, to make the curving-in part. You stop increasing. Just stitch into each single crochet and go around and around a bit. You will see that your shape will begin to look like a bowl, with a flat bottom and then a curving in part for the sides. Do this until you are happy with the depth of the cover.
Now, you are ready to decrease. In the next round you stitch two stitches together. If you want a sudden decrease you can decrease every two stitches you come to. I usually will decrease the way I increased...decrease two and then single crochet in the next stitch and then with the next round decrease two stitches together....(Continued in the next comment)...
(Continued from the above comment)...
Now, you will be getting to the point where you will need to fit the cover over the ear thingie of the headphones. To make it puffy you can stuff it with something: batting, fiberfill, somebody's old mismatched sock that you cut up (make sure it is clean).
At this point I will finish off the ring by pulling the thread through the last stitch so it won't unravel. I leave a long tail on it and thread the tail in a big tapestry needle (long needle with a big eye). Here's a trick I use to thread these needles. I take the end of the piece of yarn and pull the needle up into the bend of the yarn pinching the dickens out of the yarn. Like it is now folded as tight as I can get it. Then, I wiggle that bent, doubled piece of yarn into the eye of the needle. You could probably YouTube it to see how to do it. For years I tried to thread needles with yarn the same way I did with sewing thread and, believe me, it could get really frustrating.
Once you have your yarn threaded just stitch through the loops of the edge of your cover and pull it all tight. Knot it off and thread it some more, maybe knot it off a second time and then cut it off.
You can also make really cool cat toys with this technique and form small balls that you put a little cat nip in along with the stuffing of preference.
I've started saving all my little bitty pieces of yarn in a bag and will use those for stuffing cat toys too.
It might take some practice, but you will learn how to increase and decrease and it won't be long before you start designing your own clothes!
Thanks for writing.
Pauline
Thank you for writing this!
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