Subtle Surface #925
Light CC BY-SA 3.0Super subtle indeed, a medium gray pattern with tiny dots in a grid.
Source Designova
More Textures
Green Fibers #91
Dark CC BY-SA 3.0The green fibers pattern will work very well in grayscale as well.
Source Matteo Di Capua
Light Toast@2X #760
Paper CC BY-SA 3.0Has nothing to do with toast, but it’s nice and subtle.
Source Pippin Lee
Cover Pink #1284
Pink CC 0Zero CC tillable hard cover red book with X shape marks. Scanned and made by me.
Source Sojan Janso
Fabric pattern 2 (colour 5) #2392
Fabric CC 0Not a pattern for fabrics, but one produced from a jpg of a stack of fabric items that was posted on Pixabay. The tile that this is based on can be had by selecting the rectangle in Inkscape and using shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
Glass block pattern #2477
Brown CC 0Produced using the clouds, flames and glass blocks plug-ins in Paint.net and the resulting .PNG vectorised with Vector Magic.
Source Firkin
"Polished Stone", Gray Background Pattern #1053
Stone CC BY-SA 3.0A seamless gray background texture suitable for use on websites. To me, it has the look of stone. Feel free to modify it to meet your needs (by making it a bit lighter or darker, for example).
Source V. Hartikainen
Billie Holiday #1002
Light CC BY-SA 3.0No relation to the band, but damn it’s subtle!
Source Thomas Myrman
Background pattern 203 #2486
Brown CC 0A seamless pattern formed from a square tile. To get the tile, select the rectangle in Inkscape and use shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
Swirl@2X #948
Light CC BY-SA 3.0The name tells you it has curves. Oh yes, it does!
Source Peter Chon
Kaleidoscope Prismatic Abstract No Background@2X #807
Noise CC 0Kaleidoscope Prismatic Abstract No Background
Source GDJ
Prismatic Abstract Geometric Background 5 No Black #402
Noise CC 0Prismatic Abstract Geometric Background 5 No Black
Source GDJ
Exclusive Paper@2X #24
Light CC BY-SA 3.0Paper pattern with small dust particles and 45-degree strokes.
Source Atle Mo
Vintage tile background #2248
Brown CC 0A background formed from an image of an old tile on the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art website. To get the base tile, select the rectangle in Inkscape and use shift-alt-i.
Source Firkin
Floral background 10 (colour 2) #2045
Pink CC 0Remixed from a drawing in 'The March of Loyalty', Letitia MacClintock, 1884.
Source Firkin
Abstract Ellipses Background Grayscale #378
Dark CC 0Abstract Ellipses Background Grayscale
Source GDJ
Billie Holiday@2X #1003
Light CC BY-SA 3.0No relation to the band, but damn it’s subtle!
Source Thomas Myrman
Background pattern 230 (colour 3) #2303
Green CC 0To get the tile this is based on, select the rectangle in Inkscape and use shift-alt-i.
Source Firkin
Simple bump #172
Dark CC 0A simple bump filter made upon request at irc #inkscape at freenode. Made a screen capture of the making here: https://youtu.be/TGAWYKVLxQw
Source Lazur URH
Tessellation 9 #2548
Grid CC 0A seamless tessellation pattern. To get the tile this is formed from, select the pattern in Inkscape and use shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
Fabric pattern 2 (colour 2) #2395
Fabric CC 0Not a pattern for fabrics, but one produced from a jpg of a stack of fabric items that was posted on Pixabay. The tile that this is based on can be had by selecting the rectangle in Inkscape and using shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
The Black Mamba@2X #770
Dark CC BY-SA 3.0Super dark, crisp and detailed. And a Kill Bill reference.
Source Badhon Ebrahim
Seamless Prismatic Pythagorean Line Art Pattern No Background #569
Light CC 0Seamless Prismatic Pythagorean Line Art Pattern No Background. A seamless pattern that includes the original tile (go to Objects / Pattern / Pattern To Objects in Inkscape's menu to extract it).
Source GDJ
Floral pattern 12 #1766
Dark CC 0Derived from an image that was uploaded to Pixabay by pugmom40
Source Firkin
Dark Blue Gray Wallpaper Texture #901
Stripes CC BY-SA 3.0This seamless background image should look nice on websites. It has a dark blue gray texture with vertical stripes, it tiles seamlessly and, like all of the background images here, it's free. So, if you like it, take it!
Source V. Hartikainen