DIY Nursing Pillow Cover

When I was looking for pillow covers for my nursing pillow I couldn’t find one that I absolutely loved. So, I decided to make a trip to the fabric store and pick out my own fabric. I’m excited to share this nursing pillow cover tutorial with you. I’ve also included a free printable pdf pattern.

Most kinds of fabric will work for this cover. I used flannel for one side and minky fleece for the other side, but you can use knits and woven fabrics too.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

Materials

Printable pattern (find it here!)
Fabric – 3/4 yard of 2 different fabrics or 1.5 yards of the same fabric
22-inch zipper
Scissors or rotary cutter
Needle and thread
Sewing machine

Step 1.

Print, cut, and tape the pattern together. It will look like this:

Step 2.

Fold one of your fabrics and place the pattern on top, lining up the fold side of the pattern with the fold of the fabric.

Step 3.

Cut around the pattern. You can either use a rotary cutter and cut right around the pattern or pin the pattern to the fabric and use fabric scissors to cut it out.

Step 4.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the 2nd fabric.

Step 5.

Place the two cutouts right sides together and lay the zipper at the top center. Mark the beginning and end of the zipper on your fabric with pins.

Step 6.

Sew a basting stitch 1 inch from the edge of the fabric starting 2 inches before the zipper and ending 2 inches after the zipper. This is roughly the yellow line below. For the basting stitch, use a straight line stitch and set the stitch length on your sewing machine to a long stitch.

Step 7.

Press open the seam (I just used my fingers, but you can also iron it open if it’s not staying in place).

Step 8.

Place the zipper right side down, centering the zipper teeth on the basted seam. Pin the zipper in place. Make sure you are only pinning to the raw edge side of the seam and not to the body of the pillow.

Step 9.

Sew the zipper in place on each side. Use a zipper foot if you have it, but if not, it’s doable without one (although you might break a few needles if you aren’t careful!). I didn’t have one at the time and just had to be careful going around the pull tab of the zipper.

Again, make sure only to sew the zipper to the raw edge side of the basted seam and not to the body of the pillow.

Step 10.

Turn the cover right side out and use a seam ripper to open the basted seam.

Step 11.

Open the zipper and turn the fabric so that right sides are together. Pin around the edges.

Step 12.

Sew a 1 inch seam all the way around and trim off the excess fabric around the edges.

Step 13.

On the curved edge of the cover that is opposite the zipper, use scissors to make slits around the curve. This will help the cover lay nicely over the curves on the pillow.