The best baby knitting yarn for your next project

There's nothing cuter than baby knitting! Seeing garments made into miniatures is so adorable and whether you're making a gift for a newborn in the family, or donating your knitting to a charitable cause, your handiwork is guaranteed to make the recipient smile.

One of the best things about starting a new knitting or crochet project is getting to choose your yarn. But with so many different colours, weights and fibres of yarn to pick from, the choice can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, especially when it comes to specialist knitting like for babies. Yarns used for baby garments and blankets tend to be lighter and softer than regular yarns.

That's why we've put together a guide on the best baby knitting yarns to share some of our top picks and even some recommendations for free patterns to test them out on like this sweet mushroom set with matching hat and top.

And if you're looking for your next knitting pattern for babies, check out these charities which would love your hand-knitted baby garments.

How to choose the right yarn for baby blankets and clothes

There are a few things to consider when picking a yarn for a baby blanket or item of clothing:

Fibres

You want any yarn used for knitting a baby project to be soft and cuddly, but it's also worth checking to see if the recipient of your finished project has a preference for the type of yarn you use. Some people find wool to be overly itchy, so it could be best to use cotton or acrylic. Others might be trying to keep their nursery as natural as possible and prefer not to have synthetic fibres used. Some yarns come with a rating too which confirms they have no chemical traces making them especially suited to new borns.

Weight

Wool and yarn comes in all kinds of different weights ranging from super fine lace weight, medium worsted weight and right up to a thick jumbo weight. Each weight of yarn has a style of knitting it's best suited to and when it comes to projects for babies, it's important to consider how heavy and warm a yarn might be. Newborns and young babies can't regulate their own body temperature so you don't want to use a yarn that could trap too much heat.

It's also worth remembering that if you are knitting or crocheting a large baby blanket that will likely need to be folded to wrap a baby, the original weight of yarn is now doubled and is effectively the same as having two blankets on them.

Washing instructions

Babies love to get messy, so you want to pick a yarn that is going to be easily washable. Busy and tired new parents aren't going to want to stand and handwash a blanket, so make sure the yarn you choose is machine washable and, if possible, tumble dry friendly too!

Happy knitting!

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