There is a show on DIY called Knitty Gritty that I love b/c she does fun hip stuff an it doesn't look old ladyish. They post all the patterns on the DIY network website and they are free. Most of them are pretty easy and usually the guest has a book that the patterns come from that you can look up. Also the internet is a great source and that's how I initially learned how to knit in the first place. I think About.com is where I got most of my info and some initial patterns.
I have seen patterns for Disney stuff at Hobby Lobby and Jo-ann's. Not sure if it was for knitting or crocheting though. A technique I used to use for cross stitch though was to take clip art and print it out on graph paper grid. You may have to play with the grid size and picture size to get it so you don't have four colors in one sqaure, but it should work. If you are making a sweater, just use the dimentions from a book or one of the websites above. You can get some pretty easy sweater designs that are from beginner's if you look for it. Just insert the picture using intarsia (sp?) or far isle. You can find instructions for both on the internet. I haven't done either but they don't seem too difficult. I think the Knitty Gritty area of the website may have video stream because I know I've seen shows on it. Hope this helps.
