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When I bought my first embroidery machine, I was not ready to invest in software. Not only did I have to buy the machine, but I also had to invest in supplies. The costs kept adding up.
I did want to gather a variety of embroidery designs for my projects, though, especially since the designs that came with my machine weren’t stellar.So, I started collecting free embroidery designs.
Even though I later purchased my own embroidery software, I still stitch other artists’ designs. Why redesign something myself when someone has already done it so perfectly?
While there are many places to buy embroidery designs online, finding designers who offer free designs is refreshing. As a rule, I don’t buy from designers who don’t give a free sample to determine quality first. Once I stitch out a digitizer’s free designs and know it’s designed well, I love to support them and purchase from them in the future.
Table of Contents
Using Free Designs for Commercial Use
If you plan to sell items with these designs commercially, read the fine print from the designer before stitching items to sell.
While rules differ from digitizer to digitizer, most designers generally offerfree designs for you to stitch out for personal use and sometimes sell in limited quantities.Mass production is often prohibited without prior written permission, and distribution of the design file and its parts is always prohibited.
Don’t download Disney or other copyrighted designs from designers, especially if you plan to sell them. These designs are copyrighted, and only licensed vendors can digitize and sell Disney embroidery designs and Disney merchandise.
My Favorite Sites With Free Downloadable Designs
So, without further ado, here are some of the best websites to find free embroidery designs online. I’ve linked to each website’s freebies page in the heading, so click there if you’re interested.
Make sure to download in the file format that your machine requires. I own a Brother embroidery machine, so I always download in .PES format.
1. Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica has an expanding collection of design freebies–now at over 700 free options.If you subscribe to their email, they also send you a new free design each week.
Designs come and go, so download them when you find new designs!Designs all come with a commercial license, which is excellent for selling items.
Also, you can set up an Unlimited account with them, and for a monthly subscription (which you can cancel at any time), you get access to all 100,000+ of their great embroidery designs!
Creative Fabrica is my favorite place to download Cricut fonts and SVG files. They have some of the coolest 3D SVG files!
2. EmbroideryDesigns.com
I’ve purchased, downloaded, and stitched out many designs from EmbroideryDesigns.com.Each week, you can download 3 new no-cost designs from their large selection and manage a wishlist of designs to download in future weeks.
If you make a $35 purchase, you can download 6 designs weekly for free. A $75 purchase earns you 9 free downloads.
To download a design, you do have to create an account. Once you download your file, you can also download and print out a thread color chart.
Designs have a review system, denoted by several butterflies, where you can see how other embroidery artists have rated the design. There’s also a section for user comments.
Many designs come in multiple popular sizes, such as for a 4″x4″ hoop or 5″x7″ hoop.Most of the designs I’ve gotten here have been great, but a few weren’t my favorite due to high stitch density.
EmbroideryDesigns also offers paid designs and sells supplies such as software, stabilizers, threads, and more.
3. Oregon Patchworks
Many designers whose personal websites I’ve listed here (Bunnycup Embroidery and Oma’s Place, for example) also sell their designs through Oregon Patchworks.
The free designs are samplers from each designer, so you can view the quality of their work. If you click around the website, you’ll find a lot of great stuff!
And, if you purchase designs from them, this unlocks even more free machine embroidery patterns!
To download designs, you must create an account that requires a decent amount of personal information.
There is also a members-only area with more freebies, but you can only access these after subscribing to their newsletter. Subscribing to their newsletter gets you access to their Free Friday embroidery download, though!
4. Embroideres.com
I LOVE downloading from embroideres.com, where I got the design for my above t-shirt embroidery project.
You can download unlimited free embroidery designs anytime, and their selection is extensive. Furthermore, there’s no requirement to register for an account or give personal information.
There are many, many completely free embroidery designs, and then there are also embroidery designs that are included at no cost with purchase. Most designs include a thread color chart, too.
If browsing for a specifically themed design, you can use the search function or browse within categories.
Popular designs will have several reviews, so you can verify that other users have stitched the designs before you, thus giving you an idea of quality. Because different digitizers have submitted designs, just check reviews or do a test stitch-out before you make your next project.
5. Ann the Gran
I see designs from Ann the Gran all over, and this is her dedicated website.
She might be associated with EmbroideryDesigns.com because her website is similar to theirs, and the same rules apply (I really have no idea, though). You get 3 free designs per week, but this increases to 6 per week with a $35 purchase and 9 per week with a $75 purchase.
Also, you have to create an account to access downloads, but upon registration, you get a free week of her club membership, which gives you access to another 100 free designs.
If you pay to join the club after your trial, you get unlimited access to all her club’s free designs and other goodies and discounts.
You can sell a limited number of items stitched with most designs, but obviously, distribution of the design itself is prohibited.
Ironically, there’s also another website, grandslamdesigns.com,that has similar designs to these last two and the same rules. I’ve never actually downloaded anything from there, though.
6. Bunnycup Embroidery
This is one of my favorite websites to purchase digitized desgis.
Why? Their embroidery patterns are some of the absolute CUTEST if you want to design for a child. I make all sorts of embroidered baby gifts using their designs to much appreciation from parents-to-be. Every time I log on, I see the cute designs and start dreaming of projects ideas.
A very generous number of free design packs are also available, and if you sign up for their email, they send you a weekly freebie. They’re also constantly adding new paid designs.
I love how they have so many options for cute appliques, fonts, and even redwork. However, while there are many great designs, some of their earlier free designs are a little oddly shaped, for lack of a better term. As you can tell, they have gotten better with digitizing over time!
If you take precautions with anonymity online, you don’t have to create an account or give any personal information to download designs. You must give personal information to create an account when purchasing, though.
7. SWAK Embroidery
SWAK embroidery has many free options, but most are not as “cute” and perfected as some of the other designers. As a mom of two girls and a friend of many mommies with kids, I usually embroider for young people.
As such, having those cutesy designs is essential for me! The designs are digitized well, though, and will appeal more to users looking to embroider for adults or boys.
Freebies are regularly updated, and commercial use of stitched designs is allowed in limited quantities.
As a plus, SWAK embroidery offers MANY options of blackwork embroidery files. This is awesome if you’re looking for a simple, not dense stitching design for a lightweight fabric. Blackwork or redwork embroidery files are my favorite when embroidering cardstock cards.
8. Kreative Kiwi Embroidery
Kreative Kiwi has both really cute embroidery designs as well as free projects that you can make.
They don’t necessarily specialize in traditional embroidery but rather in in-the-hoop embroidery projects. Basically, you can create sewing projects within your embroidery hoop, such as coasters (like the one above), bookmarks, potholders, and more.
There are a few free designs, but primarily the freebies are in-the-hoop projects. I think this makes this site very unique–and very awesome!
To “purchase” these free designs, you do have to give your email, name, and phone number.
9. Oma’s Place
Oma’s Place has many incredible embroidery designs for purchase and a good, seasonally-updated section of free designs. Her mug rugs are so cute!
To download, you must give each your email address and first and last name.
Signing up for her newsletter is optional. I’ve found the newsletter to have really good recommendations, though, and it sometimes convinces me I can’t live without designs I never even knew I needed until I saw them in my inbox!
Files are zipped, which means you will need to extract them. Each download has copyright information, which is similar to most of these other embroidery websites.
10. Daily Embroidery
If you want to grow your embroidery design library but aren’t necessarily searching for a specific design, consider Daily Embroidery.
Every day, you can download a new, free embroidery design; they remind you by email. If you want to join their paid club membership, you get access to all the designs.
You must create an account and give personal information to download design files, though.
Their sister website, embroiderysuperdeal.com, has great paid deals. You can get a HUGE package of 200 free fonts for a very affordable price! (I’ve purchased this, and you can read more in my Embroidery Super Deal review.)
11. Embroider This!
Embroider This! is a great website to purchase affordable embroidery blanks, as they have almost every type of blank you could imagine–from kids’ blanks to even acrylic blanks with compartments for embroidery fabric.
While most of the free embroidery designs are for 4″x4″ hoops, there are several designs that fit larger hoops. I haven’t noticed the free selection rotate much, but their designs are well-digitized and useful for my projects!
You do not have to provide personal information unless you plan to purchase.
Each zipped downloaded file includes the design in numerous machine formats, a color chart, and a picture file. This is SO helpful when trying to organize your embroidery files on your computer to be able to see a thumbnail.
Other Options
Falcon Embroidery
I discovered this embroidery website recently and spent hours downloading all the fantastic freebies. I haven’t stitched any yet, but I will update once I do.
The designs are very unique and artsy and things I wouldn’t have even thought I needed. Plus, if you sign up for their email newsletter, they remind you to return and download the free design of the day.
Designs in Machine Embroidery
Designs in Machine Embroidery (also known as DIME) is a leader in the embroidery industry!
In addition to their revolving free embroidery designs and projects, you can buy fun things like magnetic hoops, hooping mats, alignment lasers, hooping aids, and poly patch twill fabric from their website.
Creative Appliques
Creative Appliques has several free applique designs to download and one in-the-hoop project.They have an entertaining selection of paid designs, so check those out also if you have a specific design need!
Lindee G Embroidery
Lindee G is a legend in the embroidery community, does incredible work, and also has a helpful selection of very well-digitized freebies.
Brother Official Website
When you sign up for Brother’s emails, you can access their free sewing and embroidery designs library.
While I’m writing this, there are 338 free .pes files and designs, but they are constantly adding new designs at least monthly in their “Free Design of the Month” section.
The patterns are mostly free .pes embroidery designs, so you must convert them to a compatible format if you use another machine type. There are also “projects” that you can download the embroidery files for as well as custom stitches if your machine allows stitch programming.
A significant detractor, though, is I cannot find a color chart to download!
Designs By Juju
There are several free designs available here as well. If you like Bible verse designs (perfect to put on a kitchen towel, for instance!), there is a whole collection of digitized verses.
There are also a few cute appliques and other kid-friendly designs.I love purchasing designs from here and recently made tons of wall hangings with her vintage truck designs and also embroidered the above free-standing lace bookmark.
Pro Digitizing
Pro Digitizing offers many cute free embroidery files, many for the holidays! I’ve downloaded but not stitched yet, so I can’t vouch for the quality. This is a brick-and-mortar store with a BBB rating, so I imagine they do good digitizing.
Other Compilations for Specific Design Types
I’ve written several spinoff design compilations if you’re looking for specific embroidery machine designs. Click around and see if there’s anything new you want to download!
- 25+ free machine embroidery fonts
- Where to download ITH designs
- Free applique designs for your embroidery machine
- Free baby embroidery machine designs
- Free Christmas embroidery machine design websites
- Free machine embroidery quilting designs
- Free Fourth of July embroidery designs
- Halloween embroidery design freebies
- No-Cost Easter machine embroidery designs
- Thanksgiving, Fall, and autumn embroidery designs for free
- Free Valentine’s Day embroidery machine designs to download
What Makes a Good Embroidery Design
When you first download machine embroidery patterns, note the design size and compare it to the maximum hoop size on your machine.
When I still had my Brother SE625 sewing and embroidery machine, my maximum hoop size was 4″x4,” which meant many larger designs would not work.
Now, I can stitch up to 5″x7″ with my new SE1900, and I have embroidery software I use to split even larger designs into smaller pieces. Thus, I can download and use larger designs. (There are several free embroidery software downloads that help you split designs if you don’t own a program already.)
If you plan to stitch a design on an expensive garment or other material, always give any designs you purchase or download for free a test stitch on a cheaper fabric. That, or evaluate it within your embroidery program to see if it’s digitized well.
A poorly digitized design, such as one that was auto-digitized, will have a lot of jump stitches, may have a crazy stitch density, or might not stitch how it looks in the picture on the website.
Also, this might be a personal preference, but I like having a thread chart and printout with information about each embroidery design I have downloaded. This sheet usually contains the stitch count, digitized size, and the list of thread changes. I keep these sheets in a binder and flip through the binder when I’m looking for project inspiration.
How to Download Design Files
Most of these embroidery design websites will offer their downloads in a .zip format or the file format for your machine. For me, this means downloading the free .pes file for my Brother SE1900.
If you download it in a .zip format, you must extract this file before transferring it to your machine.As far as I know, embroidery machines cannot unzip files. Thus, you will need a computer to unzip these files.
Depending on your machine, you will transfer the design to your machine via USB or WiFi, or you may have to plug in your computer. Ensure you have the design in the right file format for your machine, or you will get an error when you load the design.
Happy design hunting, my embroidery friends!
