Large thread manufacturers like DMC and small one-person design companies all offer patterns that you can download and stitch, whatever your skill level or subject of interest. Many are provided in Acrobat PDF format that can be read with a free program normally found on most home computers or easily downloaded from the Adobe website if needed. Other sites offer a free viewer that enables you to read charts designed with commercial software such as PC Stitch.

Michaels craft store carries over 100 cross stitch patterns and the store uses free printable cross stitch patterns as an enticement to come to their website. Some of Michaels' patterns are solely cross stitch and others combine cross stitch with other craft projects. Michaels' gives away free patterns from their store and they do use these on the website, but they also get free patterns from various cross stitch supply companies.

One site, DLTK (http://www.dltk-kids.com/type/crossstitch.htm), offers a whole section of free printable counted cross stitch patterns for children. The patterns offer step-by-step instructions on which fabric to choose and basic instructions on how to cross-stitch. While they are geared towards kids, beginning crafters would also find them useful. In addition to general items like flowers and animals, it also has many seasonal and holiday patterns.

Individual crafters like to share their own free printable counted cross stitch patterns. Many have regular websites and many share the designs via their blogs. Some sites provide blank cross stitch graphs which let the crafter create their own design patterns. Special blog search engines like technorati.com and blogcatalog.com are useful for finding blogs that offer cross stitch patterns.

There are many large web sites that offer free patterns. Visit the following and you won't be disappointed: about.com, which includes free graphs and links to other sites, allfreecrafts.com, freepatterns.com, stitchingthenightaway.com and far too many others, too numerous to mention. Most of these sites ask you to first "sign-up" and become a member before they give you access to their free counted cross stitch patterns that are printable. Believe me, the sheer amount of patterns available make it worth while to complete the registration.

There are plenty of free printable counted cross stitch patterns available on the Internet to keep any beginning or more advanced crafter busy. Using these patterns are a great way to save costs on any cross stitch project.