Bright & Cozy Rainbow Baby Knitting Patterns

I’ve always believed that baby knits should be as bright and joyful as the little ones they’re made for, so as soon as I found out that my pal Julie was expecting, I set out to find the best rainbow baby knitting patterns to whip up for her little one.

What do you think? Cute, huh?

The Best Yarn for Baby Stuff!

Before we get to the patterns… we’ve got to start with the yarn, right? In my experience, Knit Picks Comfy is hands-down the best yarn for baby blankets because it’s super soft and you can toss it in the washer and dryer. Plus, it comes in four weights so match it up to any pattern. I had tons of fun browsing the color catalog to pick rainbow hues for these projects. I selected white for a base color and chose Fiesta Red, Carrot, Honey, Peapod, Marina, Celestial, Lilac, and Zinnia for my rainbow.

Rainbow Baby Blanket Pattern

I chose Bounce by TinCanKnits for the blanket pattern. Sometimes baby blankets can be boring projects, but this pattern switches things up a lot with the color changes and switching from the garter stitch stripes to the lace motif stripes. All of this kept me super engaged while knitting, and the project felt like it flew off my needles. (I’ve knitted Bounce before if you want to check out the first one I made. It’s funny that it’s the same pattern but has a totally different vibe. I love that!)

I used the width for the throw-size blanket (CO 140), but I knitted it to be more of a square. I used a little under half a ball of each color for the blanket, plus 2.2 balls of white yarn, and since I had so much yarn left over, I decided to knit a matching lovey!

Rainbow Lovey Pattern

Hot tip: if you have a lot of pregnant people in your life and you want to give them all gifts, I recommend knitting loveys instead of baby blankets. They are just as cherished but are much quicker projects and use very little yarn!

This lovey pattern is from Lorraine Pistorio’s MORE Mini Lovey Blankie Menagerie pattern collection. I bought the hippo lovey pattern solo on Ravelry, but for just $5 you can purchase the whole set of all six animals here – quite the deal!

Obviously, I modified this a bit to incorporate the rainbow motif: I knitted three rounds of each color, starting immediately after finishing the garter stitch border. Also, I don’t like to use safety eyes on baby toys because they could pose a choking hazard, so I embroidered the eyes with black yarn. I think I got them a little wonky, but that just gives him a little extra personality.

I think that next time I knit this one, I will try using M1 increases on the hippo head instead of KfB to see if it looks a little smoother.

Rainbow Baby Booties

Last, but not least, we have some Rainbow Baby Booties! Booties are another great project if you need to knit a baby gift on a short timetable. And, if you are a sock knitter, you can use your leftover sock yarn to make them in rainbow colors! (I happen to have a stash of rainbow self-striping sock yarn that I used for these, so I cheated a bit).

This is my go-to baby bootie knitting pattern and it’s free! Woo! It’s called Blue Steps by Regina Willer and I use the “Re-Re-Written” instructions that hellahelen shares here. I knitted these on U.S. size 1 needles so they’d be newborn size, but I was worried about the stretchiness of the cuff, so I did the final 8 stockinette rounds on size 1.5 needles with Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind off. (That’s the last technique listed in this Knitty article).

For the bows, I knitted 7″ of 2-stitch i-cord. I tied the cord into bows and then stitched them on the booties extra-securely through the knot a few times. (I’m not going to post the project details for these below because I’ve knitted these several times and I think this post I wrote a few years ago sums them up well.)

Do you have any favorite rainbow baby knitting patterns? I’d love to see what you have created!!  Here are the project details for the blanket and lovey if you want to know more:

yarn details

Knit Picks Comfy Worsted in White, Fiesta Red, Carrot, Honey, Peapod, Marina, Celestial, Lilac, Zinnia, Whisker and Flamingo
Worsted Weight
75% Pima Cotton / 25% Acrylic
Machine wash & dry
50 g/109 yd balls

project details: Bounce Blanket

pattern: “Bounce” by TinCanKnits (available to purchase on Ravelry)
size knit: larger size – CO 140
needles: US size 7 (4.5 mm) circular needles (from my Sunstruck interchangeable set)
yarn used: 240 yards white (2.2 balls) and 50 yards of each color (a little under half a ball)
finished size: 29” wide, 31” tall
duration: June – August, 2024

project details: Hippo Lovey

pattern: “Mini Hippo Lovey Blankie” by Lorraine Pistorio (available to purchase on Ravelry)
needles: US size 6 (4.0 mm) for blanket part and size 4 (3.5mm) for the hippo pieces – both from my Prism interchangeable needle set (I magic-looped it all instead of dealing with DPNs).
yarn used: 70 yards of white and 50 yards of whisker; about 10-15 yards (-ish) of the rainbow colors and very little of the Flamingo pink – I didn’t attempt to measure.
finished size: the blanket sides measure 12”
duration: September 1 – 15, 2024

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