Friday Freebie!! (a day late...)
This week's Friday Freebie isn't huge news to any of you who are familiar with Lion Brand's website. They've completely re-vamped it - with one HUGE surprise! ALL their old patterns are now FREE!! Yup! FREE! All the ones I drooled over in years past but couldn't bring myself to purchase are now free - including their Tree of Life afghan, Luxe Cabled Sweater and a whole raft of others! I spent nearly 3 hours pouring over their pattern library and downloaded about 30 real gems! They still have a section of patterns you have to pay for by other designers but all their own patterns are now free!
Here's something else new - when you download a pattern it doesn't download as a PDF file the way it used to (like Interweave patterns do, for example). It opens in an sort of file functional window so you can save it, print it out etc. Kind of cool, actually.
Important lesson #1 - For some reason it doesn't work on my iMac. When I click on "Download" a new window opens and stays empty so I suspect it's a Windows-friendly application (my iMac isn't a dual processor). So I used my Vista-powered laptop and things went smoothly.
Important lesson #2 - Classic Elite patterns do the same thing so I suspect they use the same application that Lion Brand does. I had the same problem with the free patterns from the last few e-newsletters from Classic Elite so I have to open their e-newsletter on my laptop if I want to download their pattern. Gosh I hope it doesn't spread to other companies - my printers are all on my iMac so I have to save the pattern files to a USB key and load them on my iMac if I want to print them out - this is becoming very annoying! Anyways, I hope this bit of news gives you some enjoyment and inspiration! Cheers!
Here's something else new - when you download a pattern it doesn't download as a PDF file the way it used to (like Interweave patterns do, for example). It opens in an sort of file functional window so you can save it, print it out etc. Kind of cool, actually.
Important lesson #1 - For some reason it doesn't work on my iMac. When I click on "Download" a new window opens and stays empty so I suspect it's a Windows-friendly application (my iMac isn't a dual processor). So I used my Vista-powered laptop and things went smoothly.
Important lesson #2 - Classic Elite patterns do the same thing so I suspect they use the same application that Lion Brand does. I had the same problem with the free patterns from the last few e-newsletters from Classic Elite so I have to open their e-newsletter on my laptop if I want to download their pattern. Gosh I hope it doesn't spread to other companies - my printers are all on my iMac so I have to save the pattern files to a USB key and load them on my iMac if I want to print them out - this is becoming very annoying! Anyways, I hope this bit of news gives you some enjoyment and inspiration! Cheers!
Posted by Gloria Patre at 9/5/2009 12:24 PM 
Categories: Friday Freebies
Tags: free patterns sweaters accessories knitting ponchos afghans
Categories: Friday Freebies
Tags: free patterns sweaters accessories knitting ponchos afghans
Thanks, that is good news. So busy with school that I won't have time to peruse the lot for a while.
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