There are many places online where you can find free patterns. Here are some favorites:

• Mood Sewciety Blog has hundreds of free pdf clothing patterns. The instructions tend to not be very detailed so you may need to look at other tutorials to complete the project.
• Fabric-Store.com has pages of free women's clothes patterns. These patterns range in difficulty and have really nice instructions. They are all meant to be made in Linen because that is what Fabric-Store.com sells, but these patterns could be made in many material types.
• Purl Soho collection of simple, modern sewing patterns from napkins to dresses
• Robert Kaufman free quilt patterns 
• Sewing Support is a database of free sewing patterns pulled from accross the internets. There are thousands of patterns available but the quality varies widely.