Where to Find Free Machine Embroidery Designs: 16 Trusted Sources

Search for free machine embroidery designs and you'll find thousands of results. Some are genuine freebies from professional digitizers. Others need a paid membership, a club subscription, or a purchase before anything downloads.

This list is 16 sources we checked in October 2026. For each one: what's actually free, whether you need an account, which formats are listed, and what it's best for.

Freebies rotate. Many of these sites swap their free designs weekly or monthly. Download what you like when you see it, and check each design page for your machine's format before you check out.

1. EmbroideryDesigns.com. Advertises 20,000+ free designs, with extra freebies for members; plan on creating an account. Formats include DST, PES, JEF, VP3, EXP and HUS. They also have free embroidery fonts. Best for: the biggest single catalog.

2. Designs by JuJu. Around 180 free designs across several pages; add to cart and check out at $0. Best for: applique, word art and holiday designs.

3. SWAK Embroidery. More than ten pages of free designs, including in-the-hoop projects. Best for: sheer volume.

4. Embroideres. A large free catalog, and the page says no registration is required. Best for: grabbing designs without making yet another account.

5. Kreative Kiwi. Hundreds of free in-the-hoop designs in hoop sizes from 4x4 to 6x10 and up, with new ones added regularly. Best for: coasters, mug rugs and small in-the-hoop gifts.

6. Embroidery Legacy. A free starter kit of designs plus a set of rotating freebies, no signup needed, and an extra free design every Friday for newsletter subscribers. Lists ART, DST, EXP, HUS, JEF, PES, SHV, VIP, VP3 and XXX. Best for: a steady stream of new designs.

7. Holly's Embroidery Designs. A free design set every day. Formats DST, HUS, JEF and PES. Best for: a daily freebie habit.

8. Grand Slam Designs (Lindee G). Over 200 free designs. You can take three a week with no purchase, and more with an order. Best for: florals, redwork and seasonal designs.

9. Embroidery Library. A featured freebie that changes regularly, plus a couple of standing free designs, at a $0 checkout. Best for: consistently high-quality digitizing.

10. Urban Threads. A small rotating set of free designs. Formats vary by design and include PES, DST, JEF, EXP, VP3 and HUS. Best for: edgy, modern, artistic designs.

11. Smart Needle. Several pages of free designs; you need an account, and downloads don't expire. Lists ART, DST, EXP, HUS, JEF, PES, SEW, SHV, VIP, VP3 and XXX. Best for: beginner in-the-hoop projects.

12. Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery. A small collection of free designs from a well-known in-the-hoop digitizer, at a $0 checkout. Formats DST, EXP, JEF, PES, VIP, VP3 and XXX. Best for: polished in-the-hoop bags, quilt blocks and ornaments.

13. Embrilliance project blog. Free projects posted regularly, such as gift tags and seasonal designs. Files come in Embrilliance's .BE format; the free Embrilliance Express software saves them to your machine's format. Best for: in-the-hoop gifts and mylar projects.

14. Five Star Fonts. About 30 free embroidery fonts and designs, with extra freebies for their Facebook followers. Best for: monograms and lettering.

15. Sew4Home. Free embroidery design sets alongside full sewing tutorials, sponsored by Janome America. Sets list formats like ART, EXP, JEF, PES, VIP and VP3. Best for: coordinated home-decor projects.

16. Ink/Stitch. The free, open-source digitizing extension for Inkscape shares free sample files and a free font library. The free software exports them to PES, DST, EXP and more. Best for: learning to digitize your own designs.

Two more worth knowing: Embroidery Garden now shares its freebies in an in-the-hoop Facebook group you can ask to join, and Planet Applique usually has one applique freebie on its homepage.

"Free" usually means free to stitch, not free to share. Licensing differs by site, and many sites post it on a separate terms page:

• Never share or resell the files themselves. Every site that publishes its terms forbids it, even for free designs, so assume the rest do too.
• Selling stitched items is often allowed, but not always. Sweet Pea and Kreative Kiwi allow selling finished items (Kreative Kiwi requires a commercial license for mass production). Sew4Home's free sets are for personal use and gifts only.
• Freebies expire. Embroidery Legacy, for example, stops offering a design once it leaves the free page and won't backdate requests.

If you plan to sell what you stitch, check each design's license before you download.

Some well-known names didn't make the list because their "free" designs aren't free right now. Some need a paid club or membership, some free pages were empty or on hold when we checked, and marketplaces like Etsy aren't free sources. If a page asks for payment details for a "free" design, it isn't one.

Most of these sites offer the same design in several formats. Pick the one your machine reads:

• Brother and Babylock: PES
• Janome: JEF
• Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff: VP3 or HUS
• Bernina: ART or EXP
• Commercial and multi-needle machines: DST

Downloaded the wrong one? See how to convert PES to DST and back, or how to open JEF, EXP, VP3 and HUS files.

Free designs pile up fast. A few months of weekly freebies and you have a downloads folder full of zips with names like `design_0423.pes`, and no idea which one is the snowflake.

Sewist Studio's embroidery design library renders a stitched preview of every PES and DST design, records its stitch count and size, and makes the whole collection searchable. Tag each freebie with its source and license so you know later whether you can sell what you stitch. For a full walkthrough, see how to view PES, DST and JEF embroidery files.