Free Scroll Saw Patterns

From LoveToKnow Crafts

Free scroll saw patterns save you from having to come up with the design for your scroll saw projects, letting you be more creative on the painting and finishing.

You Can Craft with a Scroll Saw?

A scroll saw is a saw attached to a table, the blade of which looks somewhat like a drill bit. The saw moves up and down and you push and pivot the wood to cut different shapes out of the wood.

The main types of scroll saw work are known as fretwork, marquetry and intarsia. Fretwork involves cutting pieces out of a piece of wood so that what is left produces a pattern. Marquetry refers to wood inlays, where different shapes and often different varieties of wood are cut out and then glued together to form a picture. Intarsia, a term knitters might be familiar with, is a wooden mosaic pattern where the pieces of wood are glued into a wooden support.

All of these different forms of scroll saw work can be picked up by the average crafter. A basic scroll saw can be purchased for about $100, so it's not an incredibly expensive hobby to pick up.

Free Scroll Saw Patterns

The availability of free scroll saw patterns will depend on the types of projects you are looking for. Some of the designs made by scroll saw artists are literally works of art and the designers naturally don't want to give away their designs.

But, there are still free scroll saw patterns that can be found for beginners in the craft.

A great place to start is the search engine at Scroll Saw Patterns. All you have to do is type in a keyword like flower and it brings up a bunch of pages with flower patterns. These are not all necessarily free scroll saw patterns. Some are actually stained glass patterns that could easily be adapted to scroll saw methods.

One really fun project that can be completed with a scroll saw, but doesn't really fit into the categories listed above, is making a wooden puzzle. Start with a piece of wood and paint on a picture or get a color copy of a picture and decoupage it to the wood. Then use the scroll saw to cut out several pieces.

If you'd like something a little more complex, check out Free Wood Puzzles. This site has patterns for puzzles shaped like frogs, dinosaurs, elephants, dogs and other creatures, as well as other puzzle ideas and free scroll saw patterns.

Other Pattern Resources

An Eye for Design posts a scroll saw pattern for advanced crafters regularly.
Intarsia.com often has a free pattern link on its home page.
Scroll Saw Magazine offers free patterns to people who sign up for an e-mail newsletter.
Instant Plans also has some great patterns.

If all else fails, you could make your own scroll saw patterns. If you know what kind of design you would like to make you can draw out the different shapes you need on graph paper. Cut out the relief, the spaces between the shapes, to make a fretwork pattern. Or, cut out the shapes themselves and stick them together to make other types of scroll saw art.

Your imagination is the limit when it comes to using your scroll saw!

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