Playscapes for Unplugging

Creative time can happen any time.

In that special time when the imagination takes off, cardboard boxes turn into rocket ships, and blankets turn into tents and treehouses. Your kid's special space is an indoor playscape just waiting to be filled with ideas, games, adventures, and stories. Want to entice your youngsters to settle down, curl up, think, make some things, read, learn something new, and get lost in imaginative play in a nook or cozy corner? The Danish lifestyle idea of Hygge is all about coziness - and is perfect for setting your kid's imagination in motion. 

At a time when my boys seemed to be sucked in to the vortex of video games, following the idea of Hygge was a good guide for making simple changes that made a big impact. We created tents out of sheets, and swords, shields, and castle walls out of cardboard boxes. And I made sure there were piles of books and magazines to be leisurely leafed through.

Their small Hygge-inspired area was an indoor screen-free playscape where they could unwind and relax. Away from screens, they had time to make stuff, work on projects, play with Legos, build miniature houses, bring some outdoors inside, set up dinosaur battles, and play board games. They were inspired to read, explore, and daydream.

Hygge-inspired little camping spaces mark different territories from the every-day. We've curated some decor for kid's rooms, with links to buy special items - including sparkling lights, tents, hammocks, blankets, pillows that look like logs, and a felt campfire - all super cozy and comforting additions to any safe space. (Please note that the links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a small commission - at no additional cost to you.)

Vintage Maps

     · Don't miss: Crafting Resources, American Crafts, and Museum Collection Images.

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Resources Compilation

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Other C​hoices

Three American art museums have gifted us all with free access to their collections of art books. Without committing to making a payment beyond our internet and phone charges, we can build our own online libraries of art books and exhibition catalogs, courtesy of the Guggenheim, Met, and Getty Museums. You'll be able to access books via a search for these topics:

You can start your search and library here: 600+ Free Art Books Online.

DON'T MISS our guide to downloading Vintage Maps for free. You can just frame the maps as a great home decor addition. Or, use them in scrap-booking and other paper craft projects. And, transfer them to fabric for using in quilts or making pillows.

For more inspiration, see what American Crafts have been featured in a TV show dedicated to American craft-making - with the first three seasons available for free online. It's great to see the craft-makers, their processes, and their work spaces.

We've created a page of quick links for you to get started with Crafting Resources, including where to get great free resources for crafting, crafting How-To's, and the online stores we source from for our own projects.

Collectible Art Books

If you love flipping through glossy pages of photo-rich specialty books, you'll find a great selection of art, design, fashion, and architecture books at the online stores The Met Musem Store and Taschen. [This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.]

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Museum Collection Images

In the past few years, many museums, libraries, and corporate collections have uploaded their photo libraries online and made them available to the public. Some have even made their images open to public domain use, with free downloads.

Below is a list of entities where you’re welcome to search their databases for art and craft images.

Just click on the links provided to access images.

Searching by Object Type gets results for beads, ceramics, glass, porcelain, pottery, printing blocks, tapestries, needlework, textiles, linen, lace, etc., including furniture and textiles from 8000 BC to the present.

You can filter The Met’s Open Access Artworks on the left hand side by Artist/Culture, Object Type/Material, Geographic Location, Date/Era, and Department.

The Department breakdown for searching is (in alphabetical order): American Decorative Arts (8982 pieces), American Paintings and Sculpture (4799), Ancient Near Eastern Art (6157), Antonio Ratti Textile Center (42), Arms and Armor (5864), Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas (6125), Asian Art (30274), Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection (2415), The Cloisters (2261), Costume Institute (7732), Drawings and Prints (49619), Egyptian Art (12606), European Paintings (1943), European Sculpture and Decorative Arts (30889), Greek and Roman Art (12799), Islamic Art (12329), The Libraries (139), Medieval Art (6812), Modern and Contemporary Art (1046), Musical Instruments (1856), Photographs (6723), Provenance Research Project (311), and the Robert Lehman Collection (2362).

You can also filter by Highlights, Artworks on Display, Artworks with Image, and Public Domain Artworks. To get you started, here’s a page with images in the public domain, including a Ceramic Bowl from the 13^th – 15^th century, and an Embroidered Sampler made by Hannah B. Loring, dated 1812.

​​Google Arts & Culture includes more than 250,000 works of art from more than 250 museums worldwide, including Japanese, Kuwaiti, Danish, and Australian museums.

If you’ve got a gmail account, you’ll have a Profile in the upper right in Google Arts & Culture. There, you can create a List of Favorites and a Gallery. You can click on Nearby to get a mapped list of galleries and museums near your current location.

You can explore featured artists, themes, and stories. Click on EXPLORE in the upper right corner to be directed to a page with Highlights, Categories, Collections, Top Stories of the Week, and Popular Topics.

For example, after searching for “crafts,” the site suggested 542 Stories, 3 Themes, 4,859 photographed items, and 10 museum views to get me started.

(I wanted to dive right into a photo featuring “Weaving, Honba Oshima Tsumugi Fabric” from the collection of Kyoto Women, as well as a photo of Akamba beadwork from the collection of Kenya National Archives. This is a true treasure trove, laid out in a stunningly visual searchable platform.)

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art  The LA County Museum online collections database offers up, among others, searchable categories for Gods and Goddesses, Greek Ceramics, So Cal Design, Spanish Colonial Art & 19th Century Art, Woodcuts, Glass, and Portraits through its collections portal.

The American Folk Art Museum’s online image collection includes works on paper, paintings, quilts, photographs, furniture, Fraternal art and objects, and books, sculptures, and signs. 

The New York Public Library’s Digital Collection has a treasure trove of over 180,000 easily searchable items in their online database, including photographs, advertisements, ephemera, maps, atlases, illustrations, postcards, book jackets, etc.

The New York Public Library’s Open Access Maps project includes more than 20,000 works which are in the public domain. 

The Museum of New Zealand's online collection includes “800,000 artworks, taonga, photographs, collection objects, and botanical and zoological specimens from Te Papa’s collections.” Objects can be searched based on whether there are images, and whether the images are downloadable. The collection includes categories Taonga Maori, Pacific Cultures, History, Photography, Art, Botany and Zoology.

The National Gallery of Art  “...Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 51,000 open access digital images up to 4000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.”

The Rijksmuseum has curated its database of images into collections, which are searchable by themes, such as Embroidery, Fashion, Still Life, and Animal Drawings.

The Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Freer Study Collection have over 40,000 works available for high resolution download.

Additional Museum Resources

Other Choices

We've created a page of quick links for you to get started with Crafting Resources, including where to get great free resources for crafting, crafting How-To's, and the online stores we source from for our own projects.

Collectible Art Books

If you love flipping through glossy pages of photo-rich specialty books, you'll find a great selection of art, design, fashion, and architecture books at the online stores The Met Musem Store and Taschen. [This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.]

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“The Graphics Fairy is an Angel Company. You are free to use all clip art images in any of your projects created for resale or pleasure. Please do not use more than 6 of the graphic images within any one project, or within a single page of a blog or website. My images may not be used on free graphics sites (in other words if you own a “free graphics site”, do not post my images on your site to give away for free). You may sell my graphics, as collage sheets, or printables, if you desire, providing you follow the 6 image rule. A link to the Graphics Fairy is very much appreciated, when including the images on your blog or website. Thank you! © The Graphics Fairy 2007”

Please also check out her Disclaimer webpage outlining public domain and copyright issues with the reuse of images.

MORE LINKS:

Digitized Knitting Magazines

All this brings us to a wonderful corner of the Internet Archive which is stuffed full of digitized magazines (over 34,000 of them) called The Magazine Rack. In the rack, you can virtually open magazines that date back to 1800. (Please note: some of the magazines are NSFW!)

Below is a screenshot of some choices you'll see when you sort for knitting magazines:

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35,000 Free Knitting and Crocheting Patterns

Finding Great Patterns

Below is a list of 22 websites offering free knitting and crocheting patterns. Some offer thousands of patterns. Some also offer additional patterns for sale.

Our list is ordered based on several factors. We prefer websites that are easily searchable, that offer some modern patterns, and that are mobile-friendly. We’re hoping you’ll find a good match and bookmark it. 

Whenever we could, we’ve provided links that go directly to the free pattern webpage rather than the home page, to save you some time.

Please beware that some patterns are formatted in inches and some are in cm, because some of these sites are from companies based in Europe.

A few of these sites are connected to fiber arts stores or yarn manufacturing companies. They offer free patterns, and links may lead to an online store patterns, yarn, tools, and kits. Some of the websites also have YouTube channels with tutorials.

Here's Our List

We hope you get inspired for your next project:

1. Vogue Knitting

Vogue Knitting, the fashion powerhouse, offers a collection of 290 free patterns that you can download as .pdfs. Sort by designer or yarn company at the top of the webpage.

Vogue Knitting has another page where you can use the left side sorting choices to narrow down your search based on knitting and crocheting project type, yarn weight, and skill level.

Be sure to check out Vogue's helpful instructions for making different knitting stitches, called Stitchionary, as well as their yarn store finder online app, which provides your search answer with both a list and a map.

2. Lion Brand

What pattern does Lion Brand – a yarn manufacturing company - not have? With over 7600 free knitting and crocheting patterns available for download, you’ll most likely be able to find whatever pattern you could think of from Lion Brand (including some whimsical patterns that you haven’t probably thought of, like Psy and Thai’s Kitty Cozy, Felted Siamese Cat, the Patriot Dog Sweater, Knit Grass Rug, and a Mermaid Tail Cocoon). 

There are also some patterns for sale, including several knit and crochet patterns of armlets, capes, and shawls based on Outlander: The Series.

You’ll have to create an account, but then you’ll be able to search their free patterns by skill level and project type. After you click on the name of the pattern you'd like to download, you'll be taken to a page where you can select the yellow "Free Download Pattern" rectangle to access a .pdf. There's no need to buy anything. The orange "Buy Now" button is for purchasing yarn for the project.

3. Ravelry

Ravelry.com * is free a social network platform for fiber art crafters: knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers. It functions as a place to organize and document projects, find free patterns, and purchase patterns from fellow Ravelryers. You can also join groups within Ravelry, search for local yarn stores, see projects that people have made, hang out online in a place of like-minded crafters from around the world, and find groups who meet up in real life.

It’s a resource of thousands of free patterns.

Once you sign up for a free account, you can keep an online notebook of your projects. Get organized and keep notes for future projects. Or, search friends’ stashes, join groups, and trade or sell physical copies of books. As part of the Ravelry community, you can add a pattern and offer it for free or for sale. You'll find a lot of wonderful, unique patterns for sale from other Revelryers inside the site.

When you find a pattern you like on Ravelry, you might want to think ahead to your next project, and check out the projects made by others who also made that pattern. Don’t forget to look at the forums for a group/s that might match your style.

4. Purl Soho

Purl Soho is a fabric arts store located in the Soho section of Manhattan. Besides being a brick and mortar store that sells yarn and knitting tools, fabric, and patterns, they offer over 600 free patterns for knitting, crocheting, sewing, embroidery, weaving, and crafting projects.

Their designs have a modern feel, both in pattern design and color choices.

Their patterns include sweaters, scarves, hats, mittens, toys, blankets, and throws. 

5. All Free Knitting

All Free Knitting offers free patterns which you can search by popularity, easiness for beginners, and type of project. It also lists quick links to specific projects that you can link to without sorting through a category.

6. Wool and the Gang

Wool and the Gang has 29 free patterns. These patterns pack a punch in their modern feel, including some chunky knit pieces, a Marley bucket hat, and a Medieval-inspired dress that looks like chain mail.

I’m a huge fan of their knitting tutorials – so I’m hoping you’ll check them out. You can find kits, wool, and links to their Woolschool here: Wool and the Gang.

7. Garn Studio

Drops Design at Garn Studio has free patterns for knitting and crocheting projects, in 17 different languages. If you’re looking for free Nordic pattern sweater designs for free, you’re in luck. They have 8,187 patterns which have been translated into English.  

To access their pattern library, you'll first have to choose your language in a drop-down menu in the middle of their landing page. If your language is English, you’ll have to choose between English US and English UK- which, of course, is all about inches versus centimeters. The English US page has 7,081 patterns; English UK has 8,190 patterns. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you how many of those patterns are repeats from US to UK, where the pattern lists both inches and centimeters.

They have an extensive variety of Nordic sweaters, socks, hats mittens, and dog sweaters.

8. Love Knitting

Love Knitting has over 9,400 free knitting patterns and 104 free crochet patterns available for download.

This site has especially adorable baby sweaters and toys, as well as a boatload of Aran sweater patterns.

9. Yarnspirations

Yarnspirations has over 1,600 free downloadable knitting patterns, with ability level indicated on each pattern.

You can also find over 1,500 free downloadable crochet patterns, with ability level indicated on each pattern.

My favorite part of this website is their Lookbooks section, with projects put together as themes, either as a single page or as an online magazine. They’ve created inspirational themes such as Blanket Statements, Snuggle Sacks, Cozy Cabin, and Country Mouse/City Mouse. Please note – we haven’t done our research to see whether any of the patterns included in the Lookbooks section are free.

10. Bluprint (formerly Craftsy)

You’ll have to create a free account to access patterns via their checkout page, but Bluprint has over 2,600 Free Knitting Patterns available for download. It’s a vast resource. There are 42,000 knitting patterns in all, so if you want to venture out of the free zone you’ll find a lot of projects to consider. Craftsy was rebranded as Bluprint in January, 2019. If you have a Craftsy account, your information will still work with Bluprint.

11. Yarn

​Yarn.com, an online store selling yarn from 110 different yarn manufacturers (including West Yorkshire Spinners and Briggs & Little Yarn), has 878 free knitting patterns and 10 free crochet patterns available for download. Please note that the downloading procedure is not standardized on this site, so some patterns are not as easy to access as others.

While visiting the site for free patterns, you might want to search through their yarn choices from around the world.

12. Knitty

The site Knitty.com can be searched for patterns on their archive page. Under 'What Would You Like to Knit,' use the drop down menu to find free patterns. Once you’ve selected a category from the menu, you’ll see a page of thumbnail photos of projects. Once you click on a project, you’ll be taken to a page with the pattern written out – no .pdf download necessary.

13. Berroco

Berroco.com is a yarn manufacturer which offers 735 free patterns –shawls, sweaters, socks, bags, ponchos, and afghans.  They also have some unusual patterns - miniature sweaters for dolls and stuffies, and knitted café curtains. ​

While you’re on the site, you should check out their really great How-To video tutorials, listed under Learning Center.

14. Knitting Pattern Central

Knitting Pattern Central is a directory of free patterns, sorted by types of projects, with over 15,000 free patterns. The links are external, not internal, so you’ll be sent to other websites - personal blogs and Ravelry, for example, which may require you to sign up.

Since there are no thumbnail photos, you won’t know what the project looks like until you click on the pattern name. You’re at least 2 clicks away from seeing a photo of a project.

They may also lead you to pages that are no longer active, or where the .pdf download doesn’t work. But…it could also lead you to your next project! It’s a great resource, but it may take some patience to wade through all the possibilities. ​

Note that the tutorial links are all external as well.

15. Red Heart

Yarn company Red Heart offers 3, 897 free knitting and crocheting patterns for download – including cardigans, shawls, throws, kids’ sweaters, scarves, women’s sweaters, baby blankets, appliques, poufs, bed sack, bags, dopp bags, storage baskets, pin cushions, Christmas ornaments, leg warmers, hats, mittens, and others.

You’ll find a range of pattern difficulties from Easy, Beginner, Intermediate, and Experienced.

16. Knit Picks

Knit Picks has free patterns for hats, scarves, socks, dishcloths, mittens, throws, mug cozies, spa cloths, pillows, and blankets.

The dishcloths are small projects – approximately 9” x 8” –but they’re a great way to learn some beautiful stitch patterns.

17. Jean Greenhowe Designs

Jean Greenhowe Designs offers several free download designs for dolls and toys: Rainbow Babies, Meet the Ghostlys, Dainty Dollies, Nittybods, Squidgy Beanbugs, Cup ad Birdie Game, Jolly Octopuses, Easter Egg Treats, Toy box Snowman, Halloween Ghosties, Novelty Eggs, Mini Christmas Stockings, Tea Party Treats, and Big, Little, and Tiny Robots. All are super cute!

18. Rowan

Rowan, the British yarn manufacturing company, offers over 400 free knitting patterns on their website, including several free patterns by the extraordinary designer Kaffee Fassett.

19. Yarn In Yarn Out

​The blog Yarn In Yarn Out offers free patterns. You’ll have to click on the pattern description before you get to see what the project looks like.

You’ll get to see photos of the crocheted projects on the free crochet pattern page. ​

20. Interweave

​Interweave offers more than 200 free crochet patterns in exchange for signing up for their newsletter.

21. Crochetville

Crochetville is an online community of crocheters. After becoming a member, you can head over to Crochet Patterns: Free Original Patterns, where you’ll find 30,739 member posts.

22. Very Pink

One of my favorite sites with video tutorials, Very Pink, offers free patterns. After clicking on a pattern, you’ll go to a page that includes a video tutorial for the project. You might have to be redirected to another site to grab the pattern, but a good video tutorial is worth the extra prep. ​

So...now you're set with over 35,000 freebies!

Next... 

You can also access free patterns through the Internet Archive's freely available digitized knitting magazines. The site contains thousands of magazines which you can digitally flip through. The knitting magazines there are chock full of patterns published on their pages. This is a great resource for all sorts of patterns and styles - vintage, classic, and modern.

You can access thousands of free knitting patterns! You can also keep costs for your projects down by repurposing old sweaters into usable yarn. This is a great way to save money. It's also a great way to find some colors or yarn types that you might not be able to find at your local yarn store. For a guide on how to unwind sweaters and properly prepare the wool into new yarn, read Recycling and Upcycling for Crafts.

And, if you're curious about which knitting books are the most popular and which knitting techniques are trending, check out our curated list of 25 Best Selling Knitting Books. Click through to see what readers are saying about these beloved books, and maybe add one to your library! As a preview, below are five of our picks. [As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).]

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