In mid-2018 J, who I work with and was a few weeks away from going on Parental Leave, approached me shyly in the photocopier room. Her sister had given her their old Baby Björn Soft Balance Bouncer frame but had lost the cover and was wondering if I could sew up a new one for her.

The pattern we ended up using is by Twee emmerkes water, you’ll find it here.

This pattern is free but the author checked with Baby Björn that it would be ok for her to share it on her sewing blog.

It’s hand-drawn but is well laid out, has all the notches marked and includes a test square so you can check your printer scale. There is also a layout plan of how the sheets go together on the last page. It could use a few numbered notches to help you work out which piece attaches to which but it’s not that tricky to work out. I’ve paid money for much worse.
You can read all about this first bouncer cover over on my blog, including fixing one small error and some extra tips. Today we’re here to see the second iteration, for meeee!

The first cover for J turned out perfectly so I kept the pattern and when a cheap Baby Björn Soft Balance Bouncer came up on TradeMe recently I grabbed it knowing I could make a new and much more interesting cover for it.
The original cover was actually in pretty good condition, just a little faded.

This is the first time I’d actually seen both the cover and frame for one of these in real life. The belt attachments are more like toggles and there are also little “T” anchors on the frame to keep the cover on, it attaches with little loops of elastic.
For fabric, I brought a super cute space themed duck cloth cotton which is really sturdy and a contrast grey cotton for the seat insert. I reinforced all the fabric pieces with interfacing.

I started with the belt and this time I used buttons. For J’s bouncer cover, I used hammer-on snaps because I was worried about buttons being ripped off and becoming a choking hazard however J’s feedback was that once baby got a bit stronger and heavier she was able to pop the snaps open quite easily.
Hmm, falling hazard or choking hazard, which is worse?! I’m more comfortable using buttons for my cover because I can regularly check and reinforce them as needed, plus the orange buttons were a perfect match!

I did briefly consider removing the toggles and their receivers from the original cover but I decided that in the future it would be better to keep the original cover intact because these bouncers are really popular and I’ll be able to sell it once we’re done with it. Baby stuff costs a lot of money!
I basted the belt and ties on with a zig-zag for extra strength then assembled the cover exactly as I did for the first version.
My only real hiccup was a hungry cat interrupting me and one broken needle because I wasn’t paying attention as I went over a thick seam, oops! </

Attaching the skirt:
After I was about 99% done I took another look at the original cover and the elastic loops.
They are 4.5cm long plus seam allowance and are inserted 6.5cm in from the side seam on each side at the back. I decided I’d unpick a short section of the hem and add them in, like so:
And finally, it was done.

I have no baby yet for a proper demonstration so here is a cute bunny instead:
Detail of the button:
And here is the first cover with baby for scale:
This is an excellent pattern with a few modifications and a great way to create a spare (or replace a missing) cover for your bouncer.

It didn’t take long at all and I might even make a second one for when this version inevitably ends up in the wash!

Happy sewing!