Rainbow the Unicorn: Your Complete Guide to the DROPS Children 37-18 Free Knitting Pattern

There is something undeniably magical about a knitted unicorn. It sits at the intersection of childhood wonder and handmade warmth, the kind of toy that becomes a beloved companion tucked under a pillow or carried everywhere in a small, determined fist. DROPS Design has long been one of the most trusted names in the world of free knitting patterns, and their DROPS Children 37-18 Rainbow the Unicorn pattern is a shining example of why knitters keep coming back to their catalog season after season. Whether you are a seasoned maker or someone who has only recently picked up needles, this pattern deserves a place in your project queue.

In this guide, we are going to walk through everything you need to know about Rainbow the Unicorn — the materials, the techniques, the tips and tricks that will help you bring this whimsical creature to life, and why this particular free pattern from DROPS Design has earned such a warm following in the knitting community.

Who Is Rainbow the Unicorn?

Rainbow is a soft, stuffed unicorn toy designed by DROPS Design as part of their children’s collection. The pattern was released under the DROPS Children 37-18 reference, which places it in their extensive library of child-friendly projects. The finished unicorn is a charming, rounded little creature with a flowing mane, a proud horn, and enough personality to make any child (or adult, let’s be honest) fall immediately in love.

What makes Rainbow stand out among the sea of knitted toy patterns available online is a combination of factors: the clear, well-organized instructions that DROPS Design is known for, the approachable skill level that makes it accessible to intermediate knitters, and the fact that it is entirely free. You can download or view the full pattern directly on the DROPS Design website at no cost, which is a meaningful thing in a world where quality patterns often carry a price tag.

The unicorn is worked in the round for the most part, which minimizes seaming and gives the finished toy a clean, professional look. The result is a plush, solid little figure that holds its shape well once stuffed, and that is sturdy enough to survive the enthusiastic attention of young children.

Materials and Yarn

DROPS Design recommends using DROPS Safran yarn for this pattern, which is a fine, tightly spun cotton yarn. Safran is a workhorse of a yarn — it comes in a beautiful range of colors, it washes well (an important consideration for a child’s toy), and it gives the fabric a smooth, dense texture that works perfectly for amigurumi-style knitting. Cotton yarn like Safran also holds color brilliantly over time, meaning Rainbow will stay vibrant even after repeated trips through the washing machine.

For a unicorn named Rainbow, color choice is obviously part of the joy. The classic version of the pattern uses a clean white or cream as the main body color, with contrasting shades for the mane, tail, and horn. But one of the great pleasures of this pattern is that it lends itself perfectly to personalization. You might knit a soft lavender unicorn with a golden horn and a pale pink mane, or go bolder with a deep teal body and rainbow-striped accents. The structure of the pattern supports whatever creative direction you want to take.

You will need a relatively small amount of yarn overall, which makes this an excellent project for using up leftover skeins from other projects. If you have been accumulating odds and ends of Safran or another fingering-weight cotton in your stash, Rainbow is a wonderful way to put them to good use.

For needles, DROPS recommends 2.5mm double-pointed needles. Working at this gauge gives you a tight, dense fabric that will contain the stuffing inside without creating visible gaps. If you find you are a loose knitter, you may want to try 2.0mm needles, because any looseness in the tension can allow the polyfill stuffing to peek through, which spoils the finished look.

In addition to yarn and needles, you will need polyester fiberfill for stuffing, a tapestry needle for finishing, and safety eyes if you want to give Rainbow that glossy, bright-eyed look. If you are making the toy for a very young child, embroidered eyes using yarn are a safer option and are equally charming.

Skill Level and Who This Pattern Is For

DROPS Children 37-18 is listed as an intermediate pattern, and that assessment feels accurate. You should be comfortable with knitting in the round on double-pointed needles before you tackle this project, and you will need to understand how to increase and decrease stitches to shape the body parts. Some experience with simple shaping — the kind of thing you would encounter in a basic sock or hat pattern — will serve you well here.

That said, this is not a pattern that will intimidate someone who has been knitting for even a moderate amount of time. If you have made a pair of socks, you almost certainly have all the technical skills you need. The pattern is written clearly, and the DROPS Design website includes tutorial videos for many of the techniques referenced in their patterns, which is an enormous help if you encounter something unfamiliar.

This is also an excellent gift project. A handmade toy carries a warmth and intentionality that no store-bought item can replicate, and a knitted unicorn is the kind of thing that gets kept for decades. Many knitters report making Rainbow not just for children in their lives but as decorative pieces for nurseries, as gifts for unicorn-obsessed adults (there are many of us), and as practice pieces to build their confidence with toy knitting.

Understanding the Pattern Structure

Rainbow the Unicorn is knitted in separate pieces that are then assembled. This approach, which is common to amigurumi-style toy making, gives you a great deal of control over each element of the figure. The body is the largest piece and is worked in the round from the bottom up, increasing to a rounded belly and then decreasing toward the neck. The head is worked similarly, with shaping that gives it that characteristic round, satisfying look.

The legs are four small tubes worked in the round, simple in construction but important to get right in terms of tension and stuffing, because they need to be firm enough to support the body. The horn is a small, pointed cone, worked in a metallic or contrasting yarn if you want that classic golden look. The ears are tiny flat pieces, worked back and forth, that are folded and sewn in place on either side of the forehead.

The mane and tail are where you really get to have fun. These are typically created using a looped fringe technique or by cutting lengths of yarn and attaching them in rows, then combing them out to create that soft, flowing effect. If you use a slightly fluffy yarn for the mane, even one that differs from the Safran body yarn, you can get a beautifully textured contrast between the smooth body and the wild, expressive mane.

Assembly is done with a tapestry needle and matching yarn, and while it requires a bit of patience, the process of bringing Rainbow together from individual pieces is genuinely satisfying. There is a particular moment when you attach the head to the body and position the legs and suddenly the flat collection of knitted tubes becomes an actual unicorn, complete with personality, and it is one of the quiet joys of toy making.

Tips for a Beautiful Finished Unicorn

Tension is everything in toy knitting. Because you are working with double-pointed needles at a small gauge, it is easy to develop inconsistencies between needles, especially at the transition points where you move from one needle to the next. This shows up as a column of slightly looser stitches running vertically down the piece, sometimes called laddering. To minimize this, try pulling the yarn a little tighter on the first stitch of each new needle, or consider using a short circular needle (known as magic loop technique) instead of double-pointed needles if you are prone to laddering.

Stuffing correctly makes a significant difference to the final look of the toy. Understuffed pieces will look saggy and deflated; overstuffed pieces can stretch the fabric and make the stitches gape. Aim for a firmness that gives the piece its intended shape without distorting the knitting. Adding stuffing gradually as you work, rather than all at once at the end, gives you more control over the final shape.

When it comes to attaching the pieces, taking your time with positioning before you commit to sewing makes a real difference. Lay the body on a flat surface and arrange the legs symmetrically before you start stitching them in place. Pin the head at a few different angles to find the most appealing position — a slightly forward tilt gives Rainbow an alert, curious expression that most knitters find more appealing than a completely level attachment.

For the mane, less is often more. It can be tempting to pile on the yarn to get a full, lush look, but a more restrained mane tends to photograph better and wear better over time. You can always add more, but you cannot easily take it away once it is attached.

If you are using safety eyes, install them before you complete the final stuffing and closing of the head, because you will need to access the inside to secure the backs. If you are embroidering the eyes, you can do this at any point, but many knitters find it easiest to do after the head is fully closed and stuffed, because the firmness of the stuffed head gives you a cleaner surface to work on.

Why DROPS Design Patterns Are Worth Your Time

DROPS Design has been publishing free knitting and crochet patterns since 1982, and their library now runs to thousands of designs. What distinguishes their patterns from many free patterns available online is the level of care that goes into both the design and the instructions. Patterns are translated into multiple languages, they are written in multiple sizes where applicable, and they are supported by tutorial videos and a large, active community of knitters who share their finished projects and help each other troubleshoot.

The DROPS Children category is particularly strong, full of practical and playful designs including sweaters, hats, mittens, and, of course, toys like Rainbow. Because the patterns are free and the yarn is widely available internationally, DROPS has become a genuinely global knitting community. You can find finished versions of Rainbow the Unicorn knitted by crafters from Norway to Brazil to Japan, each one slightly different, each one carrying the personality of its maker.

The fact that these patterns are free is not a compromise on quality. DROPS Design operates on a model where the free patterns drive sales of their branded yarns, and this arrangement has produced a catalog that rivals anything you might find in a paid pattern library. For knitters who are watching their budgets or who simply believe that beautiful, well-written patterns should be accessible to everyone, DROPS represents something genuinely valuable in the craft world.

Making Rainbow Your Own

One of the most satisfying aspects of knitting a toy like Rainbow is the room for personalization. Beyond color choice, which we have already touched on, there are small decisions throughout the making process that let you put your own stamp on the finished unicorn.

The size of the safety eyes you choose changes the entire character of the face. Large eyes give Rainbow a more cartoon-like, wide-eyed innocence. Smaller eyes read as more realistic and slightly more serious. Cat-shaped eyes, which are available from many craft suppliers, create a more mystical look that suits a creature of Rainbow’s nature.

The horn can be worked in a plain contrasting color for simplicity, or you can knit it in a twisted or spiral technique using two colors held together for a more dramatic effect. A single strand of metallic thread held alongside your main yarn adds a subtle shimmer that reads as very magical in photographs.

For knitters who want to push the project a little further, adding embroidered details — tiny stars on the flank, a simple flower on one ear — gives Rainbow an extra layer of charm. Felt details, if you are comfortable with a little mixed-media work, can be cut into small shapes and stitched on as well.

Sharing Your Finished Rainbow

When you finish knitting Rainbow, we strongly encourage you to share your work. The DROPS Design website has a gallery where you can submit project photos, and it is a genuinely wonderful resource for inspiration. Ravelry, the knitting and crochet community platform, allows you to log your project under the pattern’s page, where your photos and notes become part of the collective knowledge base around the pattern. Future knitters benefit enormously from seeing finished objects in a range of colors and from reading notes about needle adjustments or yarn substitutions.

Instagram and Pinterest are also full of beautiful Rainbow the Unicorn projects, and using the DROPS Design hashtag connects your work to a much wider community. There is something quietly moving about seeing hundreds of unicorns made by hundreds of different hands, each one the same pattern and yet each one unmistakably its own.

A Note on Gifting Handmade Toys

If you are making Rainbow as a gift for a child, it is worth noting that handmade toys carry a significance that commercial toys simply do not. They represent time, skill, and love in a form that is tangible and lasting. Many adults today can point to a handmade toy from their childhood — a knitted rabbit, a crocheted bear — and remember not just the toy but the person who made it for them.

Rainbow the Unicorn, made with care from a well-written free pattern and quality yarn, is exactly the kind of object that earns that place in a person’s memory. It is the right size for small hands, it is soft and washable, and it has enough personality to inspire years of imaginative play.

If you are including the toy as a gift, consider adding a small card that names the pattern and notes that the toy is handmade, even the yarn it was made from. Children grow up, and one day that child might be a knitter themselves, holding their childhood unicorn and feeling a thread of connection to the person who made it for them.

Final Thoughts

Rainbow the Unicorn — DROPS Children 37-18 — is one of those patterns that earns its place in a knitter’s permanent collection. It is free, it is well-written, it is approachable for intermediate knitters, and it produces a finished object that is genuinely delightful. Whether you are making it for a child you love, as a gift for a fellow unicorn enthusiast, or simply because you want to spend a few evenings in the company of double-pointed needles and something magical, this pattern will not disappoint.

Head over to the DROPS Design website to download the full pattern, gather your Safran yarn in whatever colors call to you, and cast on. Rainbow is waiting to be made.