About the Free Patterns

All the patterns/images are vintage dating from the 1800s to the 1980s and are available for immediate download by clicking on the image and saving to your computer. Print them out, trace them with a hot iron transfer pen/pencil or trace them directly onto fabric using a sunny window or a lightbox. A cheap and easy lightbox can be simply fashioned by putting a lamp under a glass table and stacking the pattern and fabric on the glass. I use kid’s fine point crayola markers for tracing the lines but any washable pen will do just fine.

I would also encourage you to combine patterns or edit out things you don’t like and adding new ones!  Patterns with a lot of open space can be filled in with french knots, lazy daisy stitches, random cross stitches or crosshatching. I’d recommend  Gimp (free download) or Krita (also free) that is more like Photoshop and easier to learn than Gimp.

For simple resizing of the images to fit your particular project or combine multiple patterns to print out on a single page then FastStone Image Resizer is your friend. I’ve been using this free program for years (Windows only) and it works great!

I maintain this site as my gift to stitchers all over the world that brighten their daily lives via needle and thread. Of course many of the designs are beautiful but many of them are just plain fun!

You may share the patterns freely with friends and online in the same spirit that I posted them. You may NOT sell the patterns/images as that would be unethical and in that case may a pox be upon you.

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