Crochet Your Own Plastic-Free Headphone Ear Pads My Plastic-free Life

In January, I posted on my facebook profile:

The foam (read: plastic) pads on my headphones are wearing out. motivation to learn to knit because I hate knitting in the round.

Reading: Crochet headphone ear pads

well, this weekend, April 23rd, I finally worked up the motivation to learn enough crochet basics to fix my headphones.

look, although I use my wooden thinksound headphones for most electronic sounds, I also have a large pair of wireless headphones for late-night TV watching and another pair of regular headphones that probably came with an old walkman or something. . the foam pads on both pairs were shredded. And while it’s possible to buy replacements, I didn’t want any new plastic.

so, after googling for a while (my favorite thing), I found some instructions for crocheting mine.

crochet headphone covers from craftbits.com

crochet: headphone covers, reviewed from sewooked.org.

great! except that she didn’t know how to knit. My grandmother taught me how to make granny squares when she was little, but that knowledge has followed the path of the monster under my bed waiting to grab my feet. luckily, being a knitter, she knew she could learn easily and already had the yarn and even some hooks. so I looked at youtube to learn how to do the things I needed to do:

1) Make a magic circle. there are several videos explaining this procedure, but this was the easiest for me to follow at midnight when I started my project.

2) single crochet.

3) double crochet.

Because my earbuds came in different sizes and shapes, I had to play around with the instructions to get them to fit. the first pair was quite round, and I just followed the instructions on craftbits.com, adding a couple more rows to make them bigger.

When the ear tips were the right size, I put them on the ear cups and used a needle to weave the end of the thread in and out along the edge then pulled it tight. then I tied the end with a bow so I can easily remove the pads if I need to clean or repair them.

Making the ear pads for my wireless headphones was a little more complicated because the headphones are shaped like an egg. I used the double crochet for the longest part and kept that section narrower than the rest by making 1 double crochet in each of those stitches while making 2 single crochets in each point of the wider round part. If these instructions aren’t very helpful, it’s because I don’t really know the language of crochet, and I’m not even sure I’ve done it correctly. but my creation works. here are the wireless headphones:

so how does the sound through woolen yarn compare to the sound through plastic foam? I don’t hear much difference. these aren’t the headphones I use for serious music listening, so it doesn’t really matter anyway. to listen to the television or the computer at night, they sound very good to me.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not going to make you a pair, so don’t ask. The point of this post is that there is usually a way to avoid buying new plastic, that fixing things should be the first strategy before replacing them when they break, and that Google is our friend. usually. (I think you might have found these instructions via bing in January when google refused to cooperate. google is supposed to have improved.)

If the ear cushions are damaged and you don’t know how to knit, you don’t want to learn, you don’t know anyone else who does, and you can’t think of another way to fix them, why not put them on? an order on etsy.com? many crafters on etsy are happy to do custom orders. just find someone with the kind of skill you need and contact them.

here are some more relevant links:

knit cute little replacement ear pads for your headphones.

make earphone pads out of old socks.