Musik Mütze - A music hat for youngsters

Two weeks ago I held a new wearable workshop at FabLab Munich. The idea is simple: we've been integrating headphones directly into a winter hat. It keeps you warm while you are listening to your favourite tunes.

 I had literally only two days prep time, because the little one brought a  nasty stomach bug from the kindergarten... So here is a short tutorial / documentation:


Step1: Take your headphones apart. (You'll need the ones with big speakers, not the ones you push directly into your ears.) If necessary, remove all screws and break off the plastic to free the speakers from the frame. Tape the speakers around the edge to cover up any sharp plastic edges.

Step 2: Integrate speakers into your hat. Make felt pockets to hold your speaker on the inside. If you want to hide the cable as well, cut into the hat (not the head! ;)) and thread the cable through the hole. Then stitch everything together again. The cable should run through the back of your hat.

Step 3. Add your design. I've made a fox, hoping that it would make it appealing for kids. And I hid the rest of the cable in a loooong sausage of felt. Voilà!

Below is a compact hand out with guidelines in German:

And here is what the youngsters came up with during the workshop. Obviously, the ears were a winner ))

 My main inspiration sources were: watching my nephew & niece using their smartphones & headphones, and a project from Fashion Geek. If you want to dig deeper and make something which requires more time and expertise, check out how to make textile speakers on KOBAKANT's website.



MusikMuetze by Anna Blumenkranz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.