Free Pattern Friday (Finally!): Dover Samplers

I have a bad habit of signing up for mailing lists online and I end up with all sorts of junk mail that I totally asked for. I get notices about shops I can't afford (like a local fancy-pants department store or net-a-porter), about ebay searches and academic conferences. Sometimes it's a bit much. But the one thing I've signed up for and actually really like getting is the Dover Free Sampler.

Dover is a publishing company that you might know for their odd assortment of paper doll books (like fashions of the 70s, famous child stars or the Queen Mother), colouring books, little books of stickers and "tattoos", and "stained glass" colouring books. Some of my favourites from their collection are the political paper dolls. You can get both Bush presidents, the Clintons and now McCain and Obama. You can totally re-write the American political landscape with your own set of dolls (actually, you could re-write American history with a collection of paper dolls from Dover).

They also do CD-ROMs of clip art and fonts. Some of the clip art collections are a bit lame in my book, but there are others that I totally dig. It's all royalty free fun for "professionals and hobbyists alike" (their words, not mine).

So where does the free pattern come in? Well, some of the free clip art that comes in the Friday sampler are things that I want to use as embroidery patterns. Check out some of my favourites:

US States colouring book:


Early American Design motifs:



Both of these were found in the sampler. And best part? You get the full size image, so you can play around with the size.

And then there is the clip art for which I no use right now, but I like them and file them away under the category of "inspiration" for future projects:




You also get e-mails about sales or deals, but so far, my budget doesn't allow buying anything like that - especially when I can get some of it for free. It's worth signing up for and even if embroidery isn't your thing, you're probably crafty enough to find some use for them.

Happy crafting and I'll be back soon-ish with more finds. And with some projects that I've been working on lately (I've got a couple of embroidery projects happening that I'm a little bit in love with).

xoxo.
pineapples.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Friday, September 12, 2008  

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