Ooooh! In fact...! I just saw yesterday a post about free patterns. There is a site giving away for free their retired sets.... they are mostly kiddie stuff which is why I don't personally shop there. Rarely do they have anything that I like since I don't do cutesy wootsy... but if you have kids or grandkids that like cutesy, start your free collection now. www.bunnycup.com Her designs are known to sew out nicely if you like her style....
Also... sign up for Emblibrary right away = and in your profile, set yourself up for their birthday club. You get $10 to spend in their site during your birthday month. Free is cool.
There are tooonnnnnssss of free designs out there. Sewforum.com has a free designs section... most are from people learning to digitize their own so the results are not always spectacular (always test sew a design out first if you are not sure of where it came from..)
edited to add...
Also join up with embroidery garden's newsletter. She has a free project every month in her yahoo group. She has some freebies here. Her stuff sews out really nicely as well... and she does quite a few in the hoop projects which are always fun.
http://www.embroiderygarden.com