Fitted Boppy Cover Pattern

If you have a baby, a Boppy, although not the most important thing to buy (or put on your gift registry), in my opinion it comes right behind diapers and Onesies. A good friend of mine that I roomed with when I was on my internship in Seattle was so kind as to purchase one for me. I wanted one without a slipcover because I'm pretty adamant that if I can make something (especially a baby something) I would rather make it than have a purchased version. Hence the homemade Boppy cover =).

I was just going to do a basic post about the Boppy cover I made, but then after thinking about it and curious if I could do it I decided to make a pattern as a gift from me to you. When I made the cover originally, I used this pattern and this tutorial, but I found that the end product didn't fit my friend-purchased Boppy as well as I liked (my aforementioned pet peeve with stuff moving around in fabric has been mentioned previously). It took me a lot of trying the cover on, pinning, taking the pillow out, and sewing again and again until it fit to my liking.

Instead of having you go through the same trauma, you can get my modified pattern at the bottom of this post. Although it doesn't take a full yard of fabric, I would strongly recommend purchasing one because a lot of times the fabric on the bolt is skewed, and this doesn't manifest itself until after you pre-wash the fabric. Plus, if you have extra, you can make a few more fun things for your little one like a hat or shoes. Hopefully I'll do some more posts to show you both of these.

For the fabric choice, you can really use almost anything you want. I used a flannel from the Nursery Prints and Panels selection from Joann's because I really liked how the flannel was thicker than their Snuggle Flannel collection and I liked their patterns quite a bit more too. I love how the dinosaur fabric I used turned out!

The tutorial above shows how to make the zipper so it's exposed in the back. You can also put the zipper in the seam, which eliminates a "front" side and a "back" side on the boppy. I prefer putting a lapped zipper in the back, which to do you would need to add 1/2" of fabric on each of the fabric pieces you add the zipper to. A lapped zipper tutorial is here.

You can also use this pattern to make an actual pillow, although I LOVE how the original Boppy has a gusset so it can fit around wider, ahem, areas. Plus (this may sound weird) there's a nice understated quality to it. BUT if you want to make one for yourself, just sew the pattern together without a zipper and add polyester fiberfil. Easy peasy!

Without further ado, here are the pattern pieces:
Piece 1
Piece 2
Piece 3
Piece 4
Piece 5

Anyway, I welcome any and all questions and comments- I like the challenge and the opportunity to do better. Thanks for reading!

Jackie