free storage for your knitting & sewing patterns

being a crafty person with lots of patterns scattered all over the place, i've been trying out and testing all sorts of cloud storage for my knitting and sewing patterns. the main things i look for are: ease of storage/accessibility, and the ability to access the files from any computer.

Evernote

I've been using a big fan of Evernote for a long time now, and is probably one of my favorite programs/sites ever. it's terrifically useful at instantly clipping something from a website (photos + text) and automatically adding it to your evernote account with the website intact. you can search, tag, organize, and even view by thumbnail.



Some of my favorite things about Evernote:

web clipper instantly files away any picture + text + link I want from any website

attach PDF files (patterns) right into your note, beside the picture of the pattern, and link to the site

browse your patterns by photo, which opens up your attached PDF or text pattern, or search by any keyword

share any evernote folder with others

free account has unlimited storage space, but you can only transfer up to 55MB per month (I've never come close to this)

sync's with your phone, online, and programs on all of your computers

Dropbox

I'm a little late to the Dropbox party, mainly because I thought there were other programs out there that offered cloud storage with more storage. I decided to try it out though, because one area where Evernote lacks some usability is when you're working with a work-in-progress file, and for handling documents other than word, excel or PDFs. since i've been creating digital sewing patterns, across multiple computers, I always need the latest file easily accessible and ready to update in my editing program.



Dropbox does this flawlessly because you actually have a folder on you computer which is constantly syncing with all of your other computers, the web, and your phone. it makes the process seamless so that even though I'm switching between computers, I'm still accessing the same exact file, like magic. i don't have to remember to sync or update or backup. Starting out just using it for my works-in-progress, I've started using it for almost all of my files.

with Dropbox, you get 2GB of free storage, but you can do all kinds of things to increase that to up to 16GB, like take a tour, let them know you're a student, or connect with your social media. also, here's a signup link, where you'll get an extra 250MB added.

what's your favorite way to store your patterns?