I own a Brother SE270D and just bought PE-Design Basic and am looking for free patterns I can download. Thanks.

There are tons of sites where you can get free PES format designs. Just a few of my favorites are: http://freepes.designsbysick.com/, http://www.amazingembroiderydesigns.com/, http://www.cuteembroidery.com/, and http://www.cuteembroidery.com/.

At each of these sites, you can download a daily free design (either exclusively in PES, or available in PES) as well as vote for which design will be offered the next day. There is also the option of paying a fee and being able to download all the offered designs for a set amount of time (6 months to a year, depending on the site and option you choose).

Likewise, there are many embroidery sites that offer sample designs for you so that you can test their quality before deciding if you wish to purchase from them. I strongly recommend this because there are some REALLY good digitizers out there, and then there are some that are mediocre or even poor (maybe even relying on autodigitizing programs that don't do a very good job). Here are a couple great ones that I am a paying member of: http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/ and http://www.stitchitcheap.com/.

Another good thing to consider is going to Yahoo!Groups and finding a machine embroidery group or two to join (I'm on more than 85 of them). Lots of them offer freebies in their group files, and you can learn so much from group discussion. Just be aware that some of them have VERY high volume, so know what you can handle. And it is considered bad form to join a group to get the freebies and then leave it immediately. You could be banned from ever joining again if you do that.

WARNING: In case you didn't already know, collecting free embroidery designs can be addictive. Try to only save the ones that you think you might actually use, not just anything and everything that you come across, or else you will have room for nothing else on your computer! And be sure to create backup files frequently so that you don't loose all those precious designs should your computer crash someday. I burn cds like they are going out of style.

Futhermore, it is illegal to sell or give away any design that you don't own the copyright on, so be careful of any of those "popular character" designs you might find. If it's Disney and a freebie, it is almost certainly not legal. Buying a pattern gives you the right to use it, not to resell it. =]